Canadian Forestry Journal, August, ipi6 



687 



(Courtesy of "Forest Leaves" and Prof. J. S. Illick, of Philadelphia.) 

 STAND OF SCOTCH PINE PLANTED 32 YEARS AGO SOUTH OF RHEIMS. FRANCE. 



conditions of Germany and other 

 parts of Europe of many decades 

 ago. The first iVmerican foresters 

 who went to Europe to ascertain 

 the methods of silviculture found, 

 much to their dismay, that there are 

 only a few places in this country 

 where clear-cutting and planting are 

 possible; that the shelterwood com- 

 partment method requires perma- 

 nent roads and a constant market 

 for all products; that most of the 

 clear-cut systems with natural re- 

 production as practiced in Europe 

 are impossible here, because we may 

 not be able to clear-cut the forest 

 at all ; that there are but few places 

 where the coppice method can be 

 carried out as in Europe ; and that 

 the selection system, which seems 

 best suited to our conditions, is re- 

 garded in Europe as a very poor 



method except in the mountains 

 where the forest cover must be kept 

 intact. The wise ones and those of 

 a practical turn of mind soon re- 

 alized the impracticability of this 

 kind of silviculture and condemned 

 its practice in this country alto- 

 gether, or at least for the present; 

 and those who persisted in apply- 

 ing the German silvicultural 

 methods to the forests and economic 

 conditions of this country deserved- 

 ly earned the name of impractical 

 and brought silviculture very much 

 into disrepute. It was very unfor- 

 tunate for us that at the beginning 

 of our work in this country we ac- 

 cepted the silvicultural systems as 

 developed in Europe as the only pos- 

 sible scientific silviculture, when, as 

 a matter of fact, they were only em- 

 pirical rules developed with special 

 reference to given species and eco- 

 nomic conditions. We were not 

 taught the fundamental facts about 



