A PRIMER OF FORESTRY. 



PART II : PRACTICAL FORESTRY. 



FOREST MAITAGEMENT. 

 THE SERVICE OP THE FOREST. 



Next to the earth itself the forest is the most useful servant of man. 

 Not only does it sustain and regulate the streams, moderate the winds, 

 and beautify the land, but it also supplies wood, the most widely used 

 of all materials. Its uses are numberless, and the demands which are 

 made upon it by mankind are numberless also. It is essential to the 

 well-being of mankind that these demands should be met. They 

 must be met steadily, fully, and at the right time if the forest is to 

 give its best service. The object of practical forestry is precisely to 

 make the forest render its best service to man in such a way as to 

 increase rather than to diminish its usefulness in the future. Forest 

 management and conservative lumbering are other names for prac- 

 tical forestry. Under whatever name it may be known, practical 

 forestry means both the use and the preservation of the forest. 



THE USES OF THE FOREST. 



A forest, large or small, may render its service in many ways. It 

 may reach its highest usefulness by standing as a safeguard against 

 floods, winds, snow slides, moving sands, or especially against the 

 dearth of water in the streams. A forest used in this way is called a 

 protection forest, and is usually found in the mountains, or on bleak, 

 open plains, or by the sea. Forests which protect the headwaters of 

 streams used for irrigation, and many of the larger wind-breaks of the 

 Western plains, are protection forests. The Adirondack and Catskill 

 woodlands were regarded as protection forests by the people of the 

 State of New York when they forbade, in the constitution of 1895, the 

 felling, destruction, or removal of any trees from the State Forest 

 Preserve. 



A farmer living directly on the produce of his land would find his 

 woodlot most useful to him when it supplied the largest amount of 

 wood for his pecuKar needs, or the best grazing for his cattle. A rail- 

 road holding land which it did not wish to sell would perhaps find it 

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