22 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 151. 



forest-management which have crept into our literature. They 

 have done so, I believe, partly through a desire of the advo- 

 cates of forestry to prove too much, and they injure the cause 

 for which we are working, because they tend to make forest- 

 management ridiculous in the eyes of our citizens. The idea 

 has arisen that German methods are exaggeratedly artificial 

 and complicated, and the inference has not unnaturally been 

 made that forestry in itself is a thing for older and more 

 densely populated countries, and that forest-management is 

 inapplicable and incapable of adaptation to the conditions 

 under which we live. It is true, on the contrary, that the treat- 

 ment of German forests is distinguished above all things by an 

 elastic adaptability to varying circumstances which is totally 

 at variance with the iron formality which a superficial obser- 

 vation may believe it sees. It is equally true that its methods 

 could not be transported unchanged into our forests without 

 entailing discouragement and failure, just as our methods of 

 lumbering would be disastrous over there; but the principles 

 which underlie not only German, but all rational forest-manage- 

 ment, are true all the world over. It was in accordance with 

 them that the forests of British India were taken in hand and 

 are now being successfully managed, but the methods into 

 which the same principles have developed are as widely dis- 

 similar as the countries in which they are being applied. So, 

 forest-management in America must be workedout along lines 

 which the conditions of our life will prescribe. It can never 

 be a technical imitation of that of any other country, and a 

 knowledge of forestry abroad will be useful and necessary 

 rather as matter for comparison than as a guide to be blindly 

 obeyed. Under these conditions I do not believe that forest- 

 management in the United States will present even serious 

 technical difficulties. It only asks the opportunity to prove 

 itself sound and practical. 



Switzerland is a country where the development rather than 

 the actual condition of forest-policy may best claim our atten- 

 tion. The history of forestry in the Swiss republic is of pecu- 

 liar interest to the people of the United States, because in its 

 beginnings may be traced many of the chracteristics of the 

 situation here and now, and because the Swiss, like the 

 Americans, were confronted by the problem of a concrete 

 forest-policy extending over the various states of a common 

 union. The problem has been brilliantly solved, and not the 

 least important result of its solution is the fact that the people 

 of Switzerland have recognized the vast significance and im- 

 portance of the forests in so mountainous a country, and a 

 full and hearty appreciation and support of the forest-policy of 

 the Confederation is found in every nook and corner of the land. 



The history of the forest-movement in Switzerland has not 

 yet been fully written. I may be allowed to quote from an 

 unpublished sketch of it by Professor Landolt, who, more than 

 any other man, has contributed to make that history of which 

 he writes. As the example set by a republic to a republic, as 

 the brilliant result of the work of a fewdevoted men, crowned 

 by a public opinion which they created, and rewarded by the 

 great and lasting blessing which they have brought to their 

 country, our country can find no worthier model, no nobler 

 source of encouragement and inspiration. 



"Soon after the middle of the last century," begins Professor 

 Landolt, "certain intelligent, public-spirited men of Zurich and 

 the canton of Bern (which then included Waadt and a great 

 part of Aargan) turned their attention to the situation of agri- 

 culture and forestry in Aargan. Their object was to gain a 

 knowledge of the conditions involved, and their surroundings, 

 and to remove the most pressing evils. 



" In the years between 1780 and 1790, the cantons, following 

 the lead of Bern, succeeded in appointing forest-officers, whose 

 first task was to become conversant with the actual manage- 

 ment of the state and large communal forests, and to make 

 suggestions for their future treatment. Partly at this time, 

 partly earlier, a large proportion of the state forests and a few 

 communal forests were surveyed, and a few of them were 

 marked off into compartments on the ground, a measure of 

 vital importance to conservative management. 



"The appointment of state forest-officers is to be regarded 

 as the beginning of regular forest-management. Great num- 

 bers of forest-regulations bearing on the most various sub- 

 jects, tree-planting among others, had been promulgated in 

 former centuries. They had been often renewed, but without 

 forest-officers they could not be enforced. 



" Until about 1830 forestry in the less mountainous parts of 

 Switzerland developed slowly, but still in a satisfactory man- 

 ner. The mountain forests, however, with few exceptions, 

 were in complete disorder. But the following years brought 

 new life not only into politics, but also into national econo- 

 mies, and the status of the forest, which last was materially 



improved by the floods which spread in 1834 over the greater 

 part of the Alps. The damage which they caused was so se- 

 vere that the philanthropic and scientific societies set them- 

 selves the task of searching out the cause of inundations, 

 which became more frequent as time went on. They con- 

 cluded that it was to be found largely in the improvident de- 

 struction of the mountain forests. To the fear of a wood 

 famine, which had hitherto been the chief incentive to the 

 advancement of forestry, there was now added another, which, 

 if not wholly new, still had been formerly little insisted on. It 

 was the influence of forests on rainfall and the phenomena of 

 nature in general. The societies did not fail to direct attention 

 to this question, and with excellent result. The less moun- 

 tainous cantons, with imperfect legislation, made new laws, or 

 amended and completed the old ones, looked after the ap- 

 pointment of foresters, and took the organization of the felling, 

 planting and care of their timber seriously in hand. But the 

 chief gain lay in the fact that the mountain cantons applied 

 themselves to the work." 



Taken as a whole, forestry has made satisfactory progress 

 as regards legislation, the improvement of forest-management 

 and the increased number of forest-officers, since about 1840. 

 In 1865 the Swiss Forest-school was established (as a fifth 

 department of the Polytechnicum at Zurich), and "provision 

 was thus made," says Professor Landolt, "for a forest-staff of our 

 own, educated with special reference to our own conditions." 



The Swiss Forestry Association was founded in 1843. 

 Through frequent agitation, and by setting forth what action 

 was necessary, it has rendered great services to the cause of 

 forest-protection. It has moved successfully, among other 

 things, for the foundation of a forest-school, the examination 

 of the higher mountain forests, the passage of a new forest- 

 law and the correction of the torrents. 



In 1854 Professor Landolt called the attention of the As- 

 sociation to the investigation of the mountain forests. In 1858 

 the Federal Assembly appointed a commission of three men 

 with authority to study and report upon the Swiss Alps and 

 the Jura in regard to geology, forestry and police regulations 

 bearing on water supply. From the appearance of the final 

 report of this Commission in 1861 the improvement of Swiss 

 forestry has been kept steadily before the Confederation. In 

 1875 a federal forest-inspector was appointed, and a year later 

 the first Swiss forest-law was passed. This law does not ex- 

 tend to the whole of Switzerland, but only to the Alps and the 

 steeper foot-hills. More recently attempts have been made 

 by the Cantonal Government and the Forestry Association to 

 extend its influence to the Jura or to the whole of Switzerland, 

 but the need of such action is not yet clearly apparent. 



The passage of the federal forest-law was followed almost 

 everywhere immediately by the appointment of trained forest- 

 officers, and all the cantons whose forest-legislation was defec- 

 tive amended or completed it. 



" Our forest-laws," Professor Landolt goes on, "are intended 

 to work more through instruction, good example and encour- 

 agement than by severe regulations. This method is some- 

 what slower than one which should involve more drastic 

 uneasiness, but the results achieved are the more useful and 

 lasting. Our laws require the same treatment for the forests 

 of the state, the communes and other public bodies." 



The oversight of private forests is less strict. Their owners 

 may not reduce the area of their woodlands without the con- 

 sent of the Cantonal Government; they must plant up the land 

 cut over which is without natural growth, and they are bound 

 to take proper care of the growing stock, but they are not held 

 to a conservative management. In " protection forests," on 

 the other hand, the timber that may be cut by private owners 

 is marked out by Government officers, so that reckless lum- 

 bering may be prevented. The regulations which look to the 

 formation of new protection forests must also be conformed 

 to by private proprietors, or they must allow themselves to be 

 expropriated. In these matters the Confederation and the can- 

 tons work in unison. The consent of the Federal Assembly is 

 necessary to the clearing of private land in protection forests. 



It hardly needs to be added that the present condition of 

 forestry in Switzerland is admirable. Systematic forest-man- 

 agement has probably been known there as long as anywhere 

 in Europe, and nowhere can finer individual examples be 

 found. I have seen nothing, even in Germany, which seemed 

 to me so workmanlike as the management of the Sihlwald, a 

 forest belonging to the city of Zurich ; and I am the bolder in 

 my opinion because the Sihlwald (Garden and Forest, hi., pp. 

 374, 386, 397) has been called the most instructive forest of Eu- 

 rope by, perhaps, the most experienced forester of the present 

 day. 

 New York. Gifford Pinchot. 



