182 STUDIES OF TREES 



down principles for so harvesting the timber and the by-prod- 

 ucts of the forest that there will be the least waste and 

 injury to the trees which remain standing. He utilizes 

 the forest, but does not cut enough to interfere with the 

 neighboring water-sheds, which the forests protect. 



Forestry, therefore, deals with a vast and varied mass of 

 information, comprising all the known facts relating to the 

 life of a forest. It does not deal with the individual tree 

 and its planting and care, that would be arboriculture. 

 Nor does it consider the grouping of trees for aesthetic 

 effect, that would be landscape gardening. It concerns 

 itself with the forest as a community of trees and with the 

 utilization of the forest on an economic basis. 



Each one of these activities in Forestry is a study in 

 itself and involves considerable detail, of which the reader 

 may obtain a general knowledge in the following pages. 

 For a more complete discussion, the reader is referred to 

 any of the standard books on Forestry. 



The life and nature of a forest: When we think of a 

 forest we are apt to think of a large number of individual 

 trees having no special relationship to each other. Closer 

 observation, however, will reveal that the forest consists 

 of a distinct group of trees, sufficiently dense to form an 

 unbroken canopy of tops, and that, where trees grow so 

 closely together, they become very interdependent. It 

 is this interdependence that makes the forest different 

 from a mere group of trees in a park or on a lawn. In 

 this composite character, the forest enriches its own soil 

 from year to year, changes the climate within its own bounds, 

 controls the streams along its borders and supports a 

 multitude of animals and plants peculiar to itself. This 

 communal relationship in the life history of the forest 

 furnishes a most interesting story of struggle and mutual 



