Canadian Forestry Journal, March, ipi6. 



441 



Cembra pine, mountain pine, and 

 also the Scotch pine. About 70% 

 of the forest is of coniferous species ; 

 40% is spruce. 20% fir, and 10% 

 pine. 30% is deciduous-leaved trees 

 and 25% is beech. 



Seeding and Coppicing. 



In the manag-ement of the Swiss 

 forests nine-tenths are handled on a 

 system of reproduction of high for- 

 est by seeding, and the remainder 

 on a system of coppicing. Coppicing 

 is suited best to good soils and is 

 most in practise in small private 

 holdings. 



The method of clear cutting and 

 reproduction by plantations was in- 

 troduced by Swiss foresters who 

 from 1820 had begun to study fores- 

 try in Germany. Fir and beech, 

 which do not resist frost well in 

 their first years, were thrust aside 

 and spruce was almost solely plant- 

 ed. The ease and rapidity with 

 which it grew and the usefulness of 

 the wood also made it a favorite. 

 The old stands of broad-leaved 

 trees — oak, beech, ash — mingled 

 with fir, gave place gradually to 

 pure stands of spruce. Lands fallen 

 out of agriculture were planted with 

 spruce. Natural regeneration was 

 little by little abandoned and main- 

 tained only in the mountain forests. 



But the inconvenience of a meth- 

 od so ill-adapted to the natural con- 

 ditions soon appeared. In the plan- 

 tations of spruce there was found 

 at the age of 50 to 60 years a dim- 

 inution of grow^th. And then rot be- 

 gan to make disquieting progress. 

 The ill effects of the latter decreased 

 in importance when the spruce grew 

 among other species, when special 

 cultural measures were followed, or 

 when growing at higher altitudes. 

 By the forced cutting of trees broken 

 by wind or snoAV or attacked by rot 

 the stands were thinned and lost 

 their resistance. They had often to 

 be felled before the proper time. 

 The soil becoming impoverished and 

 regeneration was difficult. To all 

 these factors were added the in- 



sects which, in Germany and Aus- 

 tria, had completely destroyed great 

 stretches wooded exclusivelv with 

 spruce. 



Reaction against this method soon 

 followed and it has had its day. The 

 treatment generally applied today is 

 as follows : It seeks to preserve and 

 to increase the productive power of- 

 the soil by a judicious mixture of 

 species and maintaining the soil 

 cover. It seeks regeneration by na- 

 tural methods. The annual cut 

 should be carried out on the oldest 

 trees, those of defective form or of 

 feeble growth so as to increase the 

 volume and the value of the old 

 stands remaining. 



Sustained Yield. 



The rotation which is generally 

 the rule in the public forests is from 

 80 to 100 years in the central val- 

 leys, 100 to 120 or 140 years in the 

 Jura, and 140 to 180 years in the 

 forests of the high mountains. In all 

 the public forests the principle of 

 sustained yield is adopted which 

 means that the annual cut does not 

 exceed the growth. In order to fix 

 this exactly, complete inventories of 

 the standing timber should be made 

 regularl3^ The principal revisions 

 of inventories suffice every 20 years 

 in the mountains but is considered 

 necessary every ten years in the 

 most productive forests. Indeed 

 ever\-where where the treatment of 

 the forest is well understood it has 

 been determined that the sustained 

 production of the forest increases 

 and that at each revision the annual 

 possibility can be increased, and 

 generally the greater value of a 

 single annual cut suffices to largely 

 co'ver the cost of the inventory. 



The production of the public for- 

 ests is 40.38 cubic feet per acre, the 

 expenditure $1.44 per acre, leaving a 

 net revenue of $2.72. The produc- 

 tion from the 1,704,232 acres of pub- 

 lic forest is 69,188,000 cubic feet, and 

 the total for the whole country 

 95.310,000 cubic feet per annum. 

 Most of the wood is consumed in 



