REPORT OF THE STATE BOTANIST I913 65 



7 THE THARANDT FOREST ACADEMY 



Tharandt is about 30 minutes ride on the cars from the central 

 station of Dresden and well repays a visit by one interested in 

 forestry education. The school is purely technical and is not at- 

 tached to any university, but is under the direction of the forest 

 department of Saxony. The equipment is excellent in every way 

 and especially fine is the instruction and equipment of the depart- 

 ments of surveying and sylviculture. Well equipped also are the 

 physical and chemical laboratories. The history of the Tharandt 

 school is inseparably associated with the name of Heinrich Cotta, 

 who died here in 1844 and is buried in the forest garden above the 

 valley surrounded by 80 oaks planted there by his pupils prior to 

 his death. 



The forest garden at Tharandt is a sort of arboretum and is 

 interesting on account of the fairly large number of foreign trees 

 of large size which it contains. It is not a " made " or refilled 

 garden and has in consequence several varieties of soil and ex- 

 posure. For the most part the specimens are well labeled, but 

 occasionally one sees some errors which are not unexpected in a 

 large garden with a small staff and a head gardener better trained 

 in the care and raising of trees than in their nomenclature. The 

 Garden also contains a small museum filled with various dendro- 

 logical curiosities. The history of the garden dates back to the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century, but most of the American and 

 Asiatic species are of comparatively recent introduction. 



Adjacent to the forest garden are several hundred acres of forest 

 under the direction of the school and in which the students find 

 their practical demonstrations. The original working plans were 

 made by Cotta in 181 1, who laid out the compartment lines in rec- 

 tangles, not a very convenient method for such a hilly range. More 

 recently there has been a reestablishment of roads and lines which 

 meander according to the topography so as to facilitate the separa- 

 tion of the cove forests from the plateau forests and to facilitate 

 forest transportation. The plateau forest of the school range con- 

 sists almost entirely of spruce, the best stands of which are about 

 110 years old and contain some 105 cords to the acre. 



Among certain introduced species for forest planting they have 

 tried Douglas fir mixed with spruce. A 25 year old stand of this 

 sort shows considerable injury to the fir from heavy snow. 



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