274 



Garden and l'"oicst. 



[AVGUST I. iSSS. 



The Forest 



Thf Forests of Europe as Seen by an Aincrican 

 Lumberman. 



IIILE in Europe in 1885 I noticedin Germany, par- 

 ticularly on the lower Elbe, the Spree and gen- 

 erally over the old worn out lands, that much was being- 

 done to preserve the old and replant new forest trees in 

 regions from which 200 or 300 years since the forests 

 had been destroyed. At the schools of forestry intelligent 

 men asked, "Why do not you Americans learn by our er- 

 rors and do something to save your forests now ?" The 

 only re]>l3' I could make was that I hoped we might be- 

 gin to save before we were driven to it by necessity as 

 other nations ha\'e been. 



The new forests over Prussia from Hamburg by way of 

 Berlin through (o Breslau and in the circle with the 

 distance ircjm I3erlin to Dresden as a radius are doing- well. 



T - • 



It IS common to see plantations largely of pine of from 

 forty to six hundred acres ten, fifteen, thirty-live and fifty 

 years old, all within a few miles of each other, the dit- 

 ferent heights of trees on the land-lines sharply showing 

 their different ages. Some of the older trees are sixty feet 

 high and eighteen to twenty-five inches in diameter, all 

 growing very even and thick. These plantations are kept 

 clean, with the lower dead branches broken off for use by 

 poor people as fuel, and all this on land that looked light 

 and as if it had been run out like the " old fields" of the 

 Carolinas and Virginia. Many of those new forests in Ger- 

 many were being cut clear for the timber, lumber and 

 wood, others were being preserved with the best trees cut 

 out and sold under care of foresters. The land itself was 

 being revived and -was approaching a virgin condition 

 again. These new forests now furnish the timber of the 

 countr)\ 



In the forests of Saxon}' and Bohemia, up the Ellie and 

 Spree, more particularly of Saxon Switzerland and up the 

 river Elbe into Bohemia, I visited some twenty or thirty 

 mills tliat were sawing timber grown upon the streams 

 tributary to these waters. Some good trees were worked 

 up here thirty and thirty-six inches at the butt end, and cut 

 the whole length, say sixty to seventy feet long. In the 

 larger mills the whole log is run through gang saws, and 

 then the product is tied up as one log by itself and so 

 sent to market slab and all. The saws used were thinner 

 than ours. Very small logs, too, often no more than 

 five inches in diameter, are cut. The price of this lumber 

 was no more than it is in the Middle or New England 

 States, but ot course the Europeans use less lumber than 

 ■\ve do. From an extensive examination of Germany, 

 Austria, Belgium and north-eastern France, northern 

 Switzerland and the Duchy of Baden, I should say that 

 under the wonderful care and intelligence of the present 

 system the forests were quite keeping up with the clemand 

 for the common lumber-wants of the country', and some 

 even being shipped to Portugal, Spain and the Mediter- 

 ranean. I visited the saw mills on the Necker and the 

 Rhine, climbed the Feldberg and the Taunus, and saw 

 foresters carefully cutting and sawing the windfall trees and 

 planting a new one for e\-ery tree taken out. The Govern- 

 ment is doing so much for the forests everywhere. In the 

 little province of Baden, smaller than some of our New 

 England or New York counties, over 100 men are employed 

 and paid by the Government to care for the vi'oodlands. In 

 Saxony and Bohemia I went to the homes of the foresters 

 and found some of them ex]>erls in various branches of 

 natural history. The heads ot departments were graduates 

 of some school of forestry, and they were advanced as they 

 deserved and held their offices for life or good behavior. 

 The Germans have waited until their timber was cut off 

 before they began to replace it, but they are now prosecut- 

 ing the work with rare patience and skill. 



In the summer of 1887 I visited again the British Isles, 

 and examined the lumber industry of the eastern coast, 



of Edinburgh particularly. I saw much of the lumber 

 of Norway and eastern Russia as it ^^■as l)rought into 

 England. There is little large or wide limber left in those 

 countries. i\Iuch the same process of stripping forest 

 areas has gone on there as in the countries before named. 

 There is much less tiniber in Norway, Sweden and Russia 

 available than is generally supposed and its quality is 

 poorer — sound enough, but hard and full of knots, very 

 much like tlie lumber of lower Europe. l'^-\^idently the 

 virgin forests of the north temperate zone are in North 

 America. The impression created by the European forest 

 examination made by me in 1885 and 1887 is this : Trees 

 will grow if properly planted and cared for, but it is like 

 the first attempts in raising the tame grasses from the old 

 larms of the east in the -virgin prairies of the west. The 

 soil seems rich enough to grow Timothy, but the culti- 

 vated grass will not flourish until the wild "nature" of the 

 soil is subdued by many plowings and trampings of the 

 lame cattle ; even so, when land has been stripped of 

 woods and worn by farm crops, it is hard to re-cover it 

 with forest. Just here the aid of science is needed. Here 

 is work for the schools of forestry that have done so 

 much for France and Germany. The forest restoration 

 of Europe is due to science, and is accomplished by men 

 trained for the purpose. 



Again the more regularly distributed rainfall of -v-i-estern 

 Europe, especially in the north and Baltic countries, is 

 more favorable to the restoration of forests than in 

 America generally, though in some parts of Europe the 

 soil is so much worn out it is almost impossible to 

 make trees grow. Indeed, all over Europe, and especially 

 east and south of the Mediterranean, and over most of 

 the older settled portions of the Eastern Hemisphere, 

 it seems to have been the especial mission of the Arj'an 

 race to destroy and remove the forests from the face of the 

 earth. 



In the lumljer )'ards of England, Scotland, Flamburg, 

 Bremen, Antwerp and France I saw much of the timber 

 from America. Our forests are drawn upon lo supply the 

 waste of centuries in the old world. It is time we began to 

 think of husbanding our own resources. ^ H. C. Putnam. 



Eau Claire, Wisconsin. 



Correspondence 



To tlie Editor of Garden .^.np Forest : 



Sir. — The writer was much interested in the editorial, 

 " Hardy Fruit Trees," in your issue of June 27th, especially 

 as the conclusions reached coincided closely with those 

 readied in my tliesis on "The Crossing and Hybridizing of 

 Fruits," prepared for graduation last year at the Iowa Agricul- 

 tural College. In American fruit-breeding recourse has been 

 had as yet to native species only in the case of Grapes, Rasp- 

 berries, Plums and Strawberries. The results have been very 

 encouraging, but a vast field of work still lies fallow. Even 

 with the fruits mentioned, much work remains to be done with 

 the local forms found in the extreme north-western Prairie 

 States. The Primus Amci'tcana of the eastern and southern 

 States dilTers greatly in hardiness from the same species as 

 found in Dakota. This illustrates the fact that the coming- 

 orchard and small fruits of the extreme north-western section 

 of the Mississippi valley n-iust originate from the local form of 

 the native species and fron-i varieties in-iported from similar 

 extreme climates, such as Russia, where many centuries of 

 natural selection have weeded out the tender plants. 



Our native species of Cherry, Apple, Gooseberry, etc., all lie 

 untouched, awaiting the hand of the horticultural experi- 

 menter. Of the work done in preceding centuries we can 

 take advantage by crossing and hybridizing, which, in fact, are 

 only methods of abridging the process of evolution, Ijy intro- 

 ducing potent causes of variation. In all cases cultivated spe- 

 cies fronr as extreme climates as possible should be used to 

 infuse the desired cjuality and size. 



Besides tliose mentioned, a considerable number of other 

 native species, such as tlie Papaw and Persimmon, may be 

 improved by cultivation, selection, and, wherever possible, by 

 liybridization. 



This is a proper field of work for the new Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Stations, and is attractive alike from a scientific as 



