TORREYA 



LIBRARY 

 NEW YORK 

 BOTANICAL 



QAROEN 



September, 1913. 

 Vol. 13 No. 9 



THE VEGETATION OF CONNECTICUT 



II. Virgin Forests 



By George E. Nichols 



In many respects the attitude of the forester toward a forest Is 

 radically opposed to that of the ecologist. To the former it 

 represents merely the means to an end, to the latter it is the end 

 in itself. The fundamental idea — the keynote, as it were — in 

 the forester's treatment of the forest is utility. He estimates 

 the value of a tract of woodland in board feet. His chief ambi- 

 tion is to secure a maximum yield per acre of the most desirable 

 lumber. He regards the sawmill as the logical destination of 

 every healthy tree. To him an over mature stand of heart- 

 rotted veterans is an eyesore- — they should be felled without 

 delay in order to provide more space for younger generations. 

 The ecologist, on the other hand, sees in such a group of trees 

 the glorious, consummation of long centuries of slow upbuilding 

 on the part of Mother Nature. They represent the survivors 

 of that keen competition and relentless struggle for existence to 

 which their less fit comrades of earlier years have long since 

 succumbed. To precipitate their downfall with the axe seems 

 little short of desecration. Although forced to admit the eco- 

 nomic necessity for the objective point of view of the forester, 

 the viewpoint of the ecologist is mainly subjective. His interest 

 in the forest is purely scientific, and anything which interferes 

 with the normal consummation of natural laws is deprecated. 

 Thus it is that the writer regards as a calamity the destruction 

 during the past year of virtually the last remnant of the once vast 

 primeval forests of this state. 



At the time of its settlement, early in the seventeenth century, 

 (No. 8, Vol. 13, of TORREYA, Comprising pp. 173-197, was issued 6 August 1913.] 



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