viii PREFACE. 



knowledge of the technical side of the subject; 

 the professional economists who, only incidentally 

 and sporadically, refer to the question have also, 

 at best, possessed only a reading knowledge of the 

 natural history of the forest and of the forester's 

 art. As a result of this insufficient knowledge, 

 these writings are only too frequently character- 

 ized by one-sided arguments and a partisan atti- 

 tude without sufficient basis in fact. 



Nor is there, as far as the writer knows, any 

 book in the Enghsh language which attempts a 

 full and systematic discussion of the subject in 

 the manner in which it is to be treated here. This 

 book, then, is not intended as a popular discus- 

 sion, but proposes to supply a lack in the pro- 

 fessional literature of economics in the English 

 language ; in fact, even the Germans have with 

 perhaps one exception not yet produced a publica- 

 tion exactly analogous, as may be learned from 

 the annotated index to the literature given in the 

 Appendix. 



The main difference between the present vol- 

 ume and other existing books may be found in the 

 fact that not only the things which directly inter- 

 est the economist have been discussed, but also a 

 more or less comprehensive exposition of the tech- 

 nical details of the forester's art is given, which 

 permits the forming of a judgment as to the condi- 

 tions and hmitations under which this art, or how 

 much of it, can or must be practised. 



