338 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 339. 



meeting of the Society of American Florists toward broaden- 

 ing the scope and methods of judging, so as to include the 

 refined and artistic as well as the majestic types. With regard 

 to the judging of seedlings there should be a national com- 

 mittee, to meet three times during the season at some central 

 city like Buffalo, and pass upon all new varieties. It should 

 be representative, including florists, both growers and retail- 

 ers, together with professional and amateur gardeners. 



Wellesley, Mass. T. D. Hatfield. 



The Forest. 



Mixed Oak and Beech Forests of the Spessart : 

 Management by the Bavarian Government. — V. 



CONCLUSION. 



YOUR readers may justly ask whether the income realized 

 from these forest-lands justifies the enormous care and 

 pains which are bestowed upon their management. The net 

 annual money return from that range which of late years 

 has paid best, Rothenbuch, has been about four and a half 

 dollars an acre. This represents the money value of the tim- 

 ber cut in the compartments where cuttings are going on, 

 of thinnings in other compartments, and of other sources 

 of income minus the outlay incurred on the working and 

 management of the entire range. This low figure may 

 appear disappointing, and the remark will doubtless sug- 

 gest itself to some of your readers, whether it would not be 

 more profitable to sell the standing timber of the entire 

 forest and to invest the money in Government securities. 

 Certainly, if it were possible to sell the entire growing 

 stock at existing rates, the interest on the money realized 

 would exceed the net income at present derived from the 

 forests. But, as a fact, it would not be possible to effect the 

 sale of such large quantities at existing rates. To prevent 

 the glutting of the market and a great fall of prices it would 

 be necessary to spread cuttings and sales over a very long 

 period, and if this were done it would be more econom- 

 ical not to destroy the forest, but to continue its manage- 

 ment so as to insure its regeneration. The above propo- 

 sition, if reduced to a practical shape, would amount to a 

 shorter length of rotation. Instead of allowing the Oak to 

 attain a mean age of 300 years, younger trees would be cut. 

 That, however, would not answer at all, it would not sat- 

 isfy the lumber trade which demands large timber and pays 

 a high price for it. Prices would fall, and this would upset 

 the data upon which the calculation was based. 



Coniferous woods, it has been explained above, 

 grow more rapidly, and consequently the rotation is 

 shorter, the capital value locked up in the growing stock 

 does not accumulate to the same extent as is the case in 

 the Oak-woods of the Spessart. Hence the rent which 

 the forest produces is higher and the capital value of land 

 with the growing stock upon it realizes the same interest, 

 while maintained and managed as forest, as it would, were 

 land and growing stock sold and the amount invested in 

 three per cent, consols. The state forests of the Kingdom 

 of Saxony are all managed on short rotations. A large 

 area is stocked with pure Spruce-forests, and many of these 

 forest-ranges yield a net money return of nine dollars an 

 acre and more, which, in the case of some, amounts to four 

 per cent, on the capital engaged (land and growing stock). 



That the existing system is not financially unreasonable 

 is proved by the fact that large forest-areas in the Spessart, 

 which belong to private proprietors, are managed on prin- 

 ciples similar to those which regulate the working of the 

 forests belonging to the state. The existing system sup- 

 plies the market with the wood and timber required for 

 building and for other purposes and yields a moderate but 

 certain rent per acre, which probably will increase consid- 

 erably, for the Slavonian forests, which at the present time 

 send large quantities of heavy lumber to the saw-mills at 

 the foot of the Spessart, are not all managed on the same 

 conservative principles as the Spessart, so that sooner or 

 later that source of supply will run dry. 



Nevertheless, your readers may be right in thinking 



that an annual rent of four and a half dollars an acre 

 would not satisfy forest-proprietors in America. The 

 forests of the United States, however, have advan- 

 tages which ours do not possess. From all accounts 

 it seems certain that some of the most important forest- 

 trees of North America — the Yellow Poplar of the Alle- 

 ghanies, the Sugar Maple, the White Pine, the Redwood 

 of California and the Douglas Fir of Oregon and Washing- 

 ton — grow much more rapidly than most of the forest-trees 

 of Germany. And what is known of their regeneration by 

 self-sown seedlings seems to show that, in many respects, 

 the task of the forester in the United States will be easier 

 than it is in the Oak-forests of the Spessart. And the most 

 important point is that, with the rapid growth of popula- 

 tion and wealth in the United States, a steady and consid- 

 erable rise in timber prices may be regarded as certain. 

 Success, however, in this business is impossible unless the 

 principal forest-trees of North America are studied from a 

 practical point of view in the same manner as the forest- 

 trees of Germany have been studied. That the Sugar 

 Maple demands shelter when young ; that it, therefore, 

 probably belongs to the same class of trees, in regard to 

 light and shade, as the Beech and the Silver Fir, we have 

 learned from Professor Sargent's Silva of North America. 

 The forester will have to utilize such data concerning 

 American trees, and he will have to complete them by his 

 own observation in the forest ; he must test them by 

 practical experience and apply them in the treatment of his 

 woods. 



It is a common saying in Europe that in the United 

 States the dollar reigns supreme. As a proof, however, 

 that this statement is unjust, we need only invite attention 

 to the enthusiasm and the disinterested devotion with 

 which many branches of abstract science are cultivated in 

 the United States. Let the foresters of America study the 

 growth and varied requirements of their principal forest- 

 trees with the same enthusiasm and devotion which dis- 

 tinguish American men of science, and the success will 

 not be wanting. And forest-proprietors who will consent 

 to apply the result of such studies in the management of 

 their forest-estates will derive substantial advantages in the 

 shape of increasing rents and a steadily growing capital 

 value of their estates. Somebody, indeed, must set the 

 example, and it will take some time before that example is 

 followed by others. That example should, if possible, be 

 set in forests, the management of which promises to be 

 successful not only from a professional, but also from a 

 financial point of view. 



Some of your readers may hold that in America the pro- 

 fession of forestry ought to be built up entirely upon an 

 American basis, and ought not to be based upon experience 

 gained in Germany or France. Surely such national pride 

 is an honorable feeling. In this case, however, it would 

 lead to endless waste of time and to much disappointment. 

 Forest-management is based upon very plain and simple 

 principles, but it is a singularly difficult business. Excel- 

 lent theories have proved quite impracticable. Actual 

 experience is the only safe guide. Hence it is better to 

 learn from actual experience in those countries in which 

 the profession of the forester has attained its highest de- 

 velopment. It would be waste of time not to utilize the 

 lessons taught by success and failure which foresters have 

 learned in other countries. It would have been easy, and 

 it would have taken up much less space, if the plain and 

 simple principles on which the treatment of mixed woods 

 of Oak and Beech is based had been set forth in brief and 

 precise language. Instead of this, it has been explained in 

 detail how the present management of the mixed forests in 

 the Spessart has come about. My object in venturing to 

 attempt this has been to induce American foresters to come 

 and see for themselves. 



If this statement serves as a guide to some who will 

 afterward apply what they have seen in managing the 

 forests of their own country, the object which the author 

 had in view will have been attained. Forest-management 



