March 2, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



105 



of the future stands small chance with him against the bitter 

 climate of to-day. If this is all that forestry means to the 

 farmer, it may as well stand aside. Tree-planting, except for 

 ornament and protection against sun and wind, is likewise of 

 little interest to him at present. Hitherto the men who have 

 planted trees for profit have been those who could afford to 

 lose their investment. The value of their most useful e.xample 

 will be better appreciated hereafter, but for the present it has 

 little interest to the farmer whose small capital must be made 

 to bring him immediate return. Planting is too costly in most 

 cases, and the returns too distant and uncertain for the man of 

 small means. 



But if forestry can help the farmer to grow more railroad- 

 ties and more cord-wood on his wood-lot, if it will increase in- 

 stead of cutting down the return from the poorer land on his 

 farm, it may be worth his attention. From its very nature this 

 is just what forestry will do. Trees, which are a crop just as 

 much as corn or wheat, will yield an abundant harvest just in 

 proportion to the intelligent care they receive. And the care 

 which woodlands of this kind need is neither minute nor 

 costly. It is all given with the axe, and its quality depends 

 mainly on the choice of the trees which are to fall. It is a dif- 

 ficult matter to formulate general rules for the care of a crop 

 which may contain twenty or thirty different kinds of trees, 

 each with its own requirements as to soil, moisture, light and 

 shade. We are even ignorant, in very many cases, of just what 

 these requirements are. There are certain fundamental prin- 

 ciples, however, which the farmer ought to know, which he 

 can easily apply, and which will improve his wood-lot if he 

 does so. He should know, for instance, that the layer of vege- 

 table mold which accumulates under a crop of trees is of the 

 greatest importance to the rapid and healthy growth of his 

 timber. He should know that this layer disappears on ex- 

 posure to the sun and wind, and that consequently it is a good 

 practice to cut clean only on rich land. In general it is better 

 to take a tree here and there as it becomes ripe, or as it crowds 

 too closely on more valuable specimens. He should apply 

 this principle to the borders of his lot, and leave a dense fringe 

 of low-branching trees and bushes along the edge of the cleared 

 land. 



There is a way of cutting over sprout-lands which will give 

 the best results. The important points are to cut near the 

 ground and not to tear the bark loose from the stump. ■ There 

 is a time for cutting which is better than others. There are 

 ways of favoring the better kinds of trees so as to increase 

 their proportion in the mixture. There are ways of cutting off 

 Pine so that Pine will follow it, and not Chestnut or Oak. 

 There are known reasons why certain species follow others 

 after a clear cutting, and why others follow fires. These rea- 

 sons may vary in each case and for each locality, but there are 

 certain broad facts of the temperament of the different species 

 which always lie at their base. 



These are a few of the applications of forestry to the needs 

 of the farmer. I have been indefinite in stating them, and I 

 do not hesitate to admit that we cannot in all cases be precise. 

 Forestry in the United States is so recent that we are far from 

 being thoroughly acquainted with the silvicultural characters 

 of our trees. The general principles of forestry, which are 

 valid all the world over, have come to us from European ex- 

 perience, but the American details remain to be worked out. 

 We know in general that certain trees require more shade in 

 the forest during early youth than others, but we cannot enter 

 fully into scientific detail. We have no systematic knowledge 

 of the requirements and adaptations of our forest-flora in re- 

 spect to soil, moisture and temperature, as to comparative 

 value for sprout-lands, the age of cutting which will give the 

 best results, and a mass of similar questions. But far more 

 important than all this, the knowledge of how to set about 

 forest-management is wholly lacking among American farm- 

 ers. Nothing could be more natural, since there exists no good 

 American example. 



Forestry, then, offers the farmer certain definite advantages 

 over his present methods of handling his wood-lot, and holds 

 out still further benefits as the reward of wider knowledge. 

 The farmer himself will necessarily have little to do with col- 

 lecting and discussing the facts which are to yield this wider 

 knowledge, for the reason, among others, that the object of it 

 all does not appeal to him. He must first know what forest- 

 management is and means, and forest-management can never 

 be widely appreciated without concrete examples. Such an 

 example, on a large scale, is about to be supplied by Mr. 

 George W.Vanderbilt, on his estate at Biltmore, North Carolina. 



The estate of Biltmore covers some 7,000 acres lying along 

 and between the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, at an 

 altitude of about 2,000 feet. From the point of view of pic- 



turesque beauty, the situation is an exceptionally fine one ; but 

 from the forester's point of view, the land is broken, hilly, and, 

 for the most part, not rich. More than half the estate is under 

 forest, chiefly of deciduous trees. In the past the forest has 

 plainly suffered severely from fire, pasturage and indiscrimi- 

 nate cutting. About a thousand acres of the best land, chiefly 

 along the rivers, are devoted to farming. The rest is at present 

 largely waste land. 



Here are conditions not unlike those of the average moun- 

 tain-farm, at least in kind, and the results of this experiment 

 will be of direct interest to farmers throughout a large part of 

 the country. It is proposed to discover whether Biltmore 

 Forest, far from rich as it is either in soil or trees, can be 

 made to yield a uniform annual revenue for an indefinite num- 

 ber of years. It is hoped that this revenue will constitute a 

 fair rate of interest on the value of the property. These things 

 are to be brought about by introducing a rational system of 

 forest-management, which will attempt to harvest each year 

 so much as may be safely cut, but only so much, and under 

 which the productive power of the forest will steadily increase. 

 The forest will be looked upon as a great working capital 

 whose function it is to produce interest, and which does not 

 need to be destroyed in the process. This is, I believe, the 

 only basis upon which forestry will ever become practically 

 accepted among the masses of the people, and for this reason 

 the experiment at Biltmore may perhaps not unfairly be re- 

 garded as one of the most important advances that forestry 

 has yet made in this country. 



It is too early to speak of the details of the management by 

 means of which it is expected to accomplish these results. 

 The detailed preliminary study of the forest, which must pre- 

 cede any complete plan of acfion, has not yet been made. It 

 may be said, however, that the management will be based on 

 European inodels, not adopted, but adapted to American 

 needs. There will be several units of management, and prob- 

 ably as many disfinct methods of treatment, both in obedience 

 to the requirements of the forest and because the scope and 

 value of the experiment will be so much the greater. Each 

 unit will be subdivided into blocks or compartments, which 

 will be surveyed and demarcated on the ground. These pro- 

 visions, as well as many others, will be gathered together in a 

 document called a Working Plan, which will forecast the suc- 

 cession of cuttings for perhaps a hundred years (or whatever 

 the average age of the merchantable log may be found to be), 

 and will prescribe it for five or ten. At the end of this shorter 

 period a complete revision of the working plan will rectify 

 mistakes and readjust the details of the management. 



The attempt to do this new thing under the condifions I 

 have described will result, it is hoped, in much knowledge of 

 value to the farmer. First of all, it will draw his attention to 

 the fact that there is such a thing in America as forest-man- 

 agement, and that will be a point gained. Then it will show 

 him, if he chooses to learn, what forest-management means 

 and how it is applied, for it is intended to make a fully illus- 

 trated exhibit of the Biltmore working plan at Chicago. But 

 it will not appeal only to the farmer. As the first attempt of 

 its kind in the United States, the experiment at Biltmore will 

 have, it is hoped, a distinct national bearing and importance. 

 It should do much to remove forestry from the anomalous 

 and often illogical position into which the mistaken zeal of 

 some of its friends has forced it, and to ground its roots in the 

 solid earth of business common sense. Not only does it enter 

 a new field, but it asserts a proposition which must ultimately 

 lie at the base of forest-preservation in this country — namely, 

 that it is not necessary to destroy a forest in order to make it 



pay. 



New York. 



Gifford Pinchot. 



Correspondence. 



A Japanese Flower Party. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In reading Mr. Conder's book on Japanese floral ar- 

 rangements, recently so instrucfively reviewed in your columns, 

 I was particularly pleased with the account he gives of the en- 

 tertainments, at which, for the edification of the guests, the 

 principal feature is the preparation by a member of the party 

 of one of their fanciful bouquets, if indeed it is permissible to 

 apply our occidental term to anything so poetical and conven- 

 tional, as the graceful but singular grouping of a few twigs and 

 flowers, whicli the Japanese admire. 



This Oriental has brought "good form" down to the nicest 

 point ; indeed, to such an extent has he carried it that he is not 

 even permitted to apply the wrong adjective to a flower, so 



