Warkrn.—Sta'e Forestry: its Aim and Object. 193 
the general principles of forest craft, although it may require some years 
of careful observation and experiment to ascertain how best to apply them. 
Natural reproduction is affected by a gradual removal of the existing older 
stock. Ifa forest tract be suddenly cleared, there will ordinarily spring up 
a mass of coarse herbage and undergrowth, through which seedlings of the 
forest trees will rarely be able to struggle. In the case of mountain forests 
being suddenly laid low, we have also to fear not only the sudden appearance 
of an undergrowth prejudicial to tree reproduction, but the total loss of the 
soil from exposure to the full violence of the rain when it is no longer 
bound together by the tree roots. This soil is then washed away into the 
vallies below, leaving a bare or rocky hillside bearing nothing but the scan- 
tiest herbage. We must therefore note how Nature acts in the reproduction 
of forest trees, and follow in her footsteps. As Pope writes— 
« First follow Nature and your judgement frame 
By her just standard, which remains the same, 
Uoma  *- to 
Acting on this principle, foresters have arrived at a systematie method of 
treatment, under which large tracts of forest in Germany and France are 
now managed. The forests of a division, working circle, or district, are 
divided according to the description of the timber and the prevailing age 
of the trees, and it is the aim of the forester gradually to equalise the 
annual yield, and ensure its permanency. With this object he divides the 
total number of years which are found necessary to enable a tree to reach 
maturity, into a certain number of periods, and divides his forest into blocks 
corresponding with each period or state of growth. Thus, the beech having 
a rotation of 120 years, beech forests would be divided into six periods of 
twenty years each, that is to say, when the forest has been brought into 
proper order there should be as nearly as possible equal areas under crop in 
each of the six periods, viz., from one year to twenty, from twenty to forty, 
and so on. It is not necessary that the total extent in each period should 
be together, but it is advisable to group them as much as possible, and work 
each tract regularly in succession, having regard to the direction of the 
prevailing winds. When a block arrives in the last or oldest period, felling 
is commenced by what is called a preparatory or seed clearing, which is 
very slight, and scarcely to be distinguished from the ordinary thinning 
carried on in the former periods. . This is followed by a clearing for light 
in the first year after seed has fallen (the beech seeds only every fourth or 
fifth year) with the objects of—1st, preparing the ground to receive the 
seed ; 2nd, allowing the seed to germinate as it falls; 8rd, affording suffi- 
cient light to the young seedlings. The finest trees are, as a rule, left 
standing, with the two-fold object of depositing the seed and sheltering the 
young trees as they come up. 
Y 
