FOREST EXPLOITATION "A TIRE ET AIRE." 41 



in regard to some most remarkable discovery or device of 

 of the day when it is explained to him : Anybody might 

 have known that ! Oft-times are we reminded of the story 

 of Columbus and the egg. He was told by a flippant 

 boaster that any one might have discovered America. 

 The successful voyager, it is said, called for an egg, and 

 asked the disparager of his prescience and perseverance if 

 he could make it stand on end. He tried, but without 

 success ; when Columbus, taking it in hand, chipped the 

 end by a slight blow with it on the table, and on this it 

 stood erect, " Oh ! I could have done it so." " Yes j" was 

 the reply, " and you could also have discovered the New 

 World after I had shown you the way!" And so may it be 

 with the exploitation of forests according to La methode & 

 tire et aire, that now introduced. 



Though many now-a-days may see nothing wonderful 

 in such a device, two hundred years ago it was hailed 

 throughout a great extent of Europe as the very means to 

 be employed in conjunction with a reformed administra- 

 tion to secure the reproduction of felled woods, and withal 

 a sustained production of firewood and of timber. And 

 this expectation appears to have been expressed in the 

 designation given to this improved method of exploitation. 



I understand the last term in this designation given to 

 it to be an old corrupt form of the verb avoir, to have ; 

 and I regard the designation as one resembling our col- 

 loquial phrase : Cut, and come again ! but as going beyond 

 this, and as equivalent to saying, Pull away, aud yet possess! 

 This is how to do it, La Methode a tire ei aire to pull up 

 and use, and yet possess your forest as valuable and pro- 

 ductive as ever ! 



The device was at once adopted with great expectations 

 in Germany, where also they were beginning to suffer from 

 the devastation of their forests. But there a briefer cycle 

 of exploitation was adopted than that proposed in France. 



From an historical notice of forest management, by M. 

 Parade, prefixed to M. Nanquette's Cours d'Amenagement 



