FOREST SOCIETIES. 55 1 



ation, and cost of marketing. It is the province of forestry tc 

 educate for, as well as to practice the principles of, economic 

 harvesting and cultivation of forest crops, as well as the encour- 

 agement of forest protection and planting where necessary for 

 the welfare of the race. 



1036. Systems of management in cutting and regeneration 

 of forests. Several systems of forest management have been de- 

 veloped which are expressed briefly by Gifford as follows: 



I. "The selection system, which is especially adapted to 

 uneven-aged or irregular protection forests. 



II. " The system of clear-cutting and then regenerating by 

 planting with young trees, or by sowing the seed, or by waiting 

 until the wind sows it from an adjoining forest. 



III. "The system of regenerating pure forests naturally by 

 uniformly and gradually thinning throughout, and admitting 

 light in such a way that the seeds will germinate and the young 

 growth properly develop. 



IV. " The coppice system, where the forest consists of species 

 which will sprout from the stump or the root." 



1037. Protection of forests. The fact that forests have an 

 important influence in regulating the movement and disposal of 

 rainfall has led the National Government and several State 

 Governments to adopt forest policies and to set apart certain 

 forest areas, especially in mountainous districts, as reservations, 

 where lumbering is prohibited by law and efforts made to regen- 

 erate the forests where necessary and protect them from fire. 

 The value of these forest reservations is, ist, the protection of 

 game and other wild animals; 2d, holding in reserve water- 

 storage for power, as well as for city supplies; 3d, the protection 

 of the valleys and lowlands from destructive floods; 4th, the 

 providing healthful resorts where people find rest from the busy 

 and exacting professional and business lives. When the prin- 

 ciples of forestry are better understood by the people the reser- 

 vations will probably be cropped and regenerated according to 

 some suitable system which will not lessen their value for the 

 purposes for which they were first set apart, and at the same 



