CERTAIN FEATURES OF GERMAN FORESTRY 



BY HOMER D. HOUSE 



German forestry, perhaps because it is the most scientifically 

 developed of any in Europe, has been for many years a source of 

 deep interest and profitable study on the part of American students 

 of forest management and utilization. There are those who predict 

 for America, before many decades shall have passed, forestry con- 

 ditions similar to those now existing in Germany. That we may 

 in time develop in America a scientific as well as practical scheme 

 of forestry, no one can doubt, but that it will in any way resemble 

 German methods seems wholly improbable, unless we can make 

 over our methods of taxation and administration of public lands. 

 German forestry pays its way. Forestry is a sort of government 

 trust in Germany. Without the connivance of the government it 

 would no more pay to grow timber for any purpose other than for 

 firewood in Germany than in the United States. Germany imports 

 vast quantities of timber, but the duty is so adjusted that it is a 

 paying proposition for the German states to invest money in long- 

 time rotations of forest crops. With a high stumpage value, the 

 owners of the German forests, either private or state, can afford to 

 make a more complete utilization of all the products of the forest, 

 can afford more careful methods in logging, and can afford the 

 expense of replanting and protection. The entire expense is put 

 where it belongs, that is, on everybody, because everybody is directly 

 or indirectly a consumer of forest products. I wonder how many 

 advocates of conservation of our forest resources in the United 

 States realize that low tariff on imported timber means low stump- 

 age values in our own forests and that low stumpage values mean 

 waste and high speed in lumbering? 



The German forests present an almost endless variety of con- 

 ditions with respect to management and utilization, and the observant 

 forester will find therein much food for thought in connection with 

 forest conditions which prevail, at home and he will discover therein 

 many new ideas that will be of benefit to him in coping with 

 American problems in forestry. 



The following sketches are taken at random from my notes with 

 a view of presenting characteristic and interesting methods of pro- 

 cedure in sylviculture, management and utilization, particularly of 

 such ranges in the German forests as may well pay any student of 

 forestry to visit who has the opportunity to travel. 



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