I "I J 



Th^ Cnltnre aui Mauapmeiit ol our Natiye Forests, for Deyelopeut 

 as Tifflkr or Oniaiueutal 



BY H. W. S. CLEVELAND. 



Man's progress from barbarism to civilization is indicated by the 

 degree of skill he has attained in the cultivation of those products 

 of the earth which minister to his necessities and comfort. As long 

 as the natural resources are sufficient to supply his primary wants 

 of food and clothing, he will make no effort to increase them, and 

 it is only as he is driven by the necessities of increasing demand 

 and diminishing supply that he exerts himself to secure relief by 

 artificial means. 



The first efforts of the savage at cultivation are of the rudest de- 

 scription, and just in proportion as tribes and nations advance in 

 numl)er8, power and intelligence, do they also gain in improved 

 methods of tillage, in greater knowledge of the science of culture, 

 and in better implements and machinery for its performance. 



These are simple truths, which everyone will recognize. Their 

 apjdication to the subject of forest culture, lies in the obvious fact 

 that it is not until a nation has reached mature age, and an ad- 

 vanced stage of civilization, that the native growth of wild forest 

 proves insufficient for the increasing demand for timber, and the 

 necessity of providing, by artificial culture, for an additional supply, 

 begins to be felt. 



We could hardly have a more striking illustration than is here 

 afforded, of the adaptation of the provisions of nature, first, to the 

 immediate necessities of existence, and subsequently to the develop- 

 ment of the latent powers of the human race. The cereals and 

 vegetables which are essential to man's daily support are of annual 

 growth. Their culture is comparatively simple, and he soon learns 

 that his very existence is dependent upon their renewed production 

 with each recurring summer. The forests are equally essential to 

 his further development, by furnishing material for the construction 

 of houses and ships, and the countless implements by whose aid he 

 attains to almost superhuman power. But the forest requires the 

 lifetime of two or three generations for the full attainment of ma- 

 turity. In the infaucy. of the race, the necessity of providing for 

 such distant wants could not l)e foreseen. 



Nature, therefore, as if she had been conscious that forest culture 

 was too arduous an undertaking for primitive man, has furnished so 

 al)undant a supply, that no deficiency or necessity of economy is 

 felt till the nation has acquired such a degree of intelligence as to 

 be competent to the solution of the prol)lem. 



And this is the point at which we now stand, and which the older 

 nations of Europe have long since passed, seeing plainly that our 



