THE NEW FORESTRY. 151 



principle than that of " rule of thumb," and cannot be regarded 

 as anything but wasteful. Talcing almost any species of forest 

 tree, and considering the kind of exposed and waste lands 

 usually recommended to be planted, and the rate of growth to 

 be expected, on what rational principle can the removal of fully 

 half the crop — almost before the trees have met — be 

 defended? Of course, the light and air theory dominated 

 Grigor as it did his contemporaries. At the age of forty years, 

 Grigor's number stands at three hundred to .'■ three hundred 

 and fifty, against Schlich's record of one thousand and thirteen, 

 and so on to the end. The attention of foresters is particu- 

 larly drawn to Plates Nos. 1 and 3, showing the beginning and 

 end of the rotation period. The idea held, tenaciously, by 

 foresters in this country, is that if a young plantation is allowed 

 to become as crowded, up to twenty or thirty years of age, as 

 shown in No. 1, the trees can never afterwards produce good 

 timber or be healthy. Yet the plate represents the general 

 condition of a young fir forest of the above age, or older, and, 

 for that part of it, of hard-woods also, under good manage- 

 ment ; and No. 3 shows what such a plantation becomes at 

 maturity, or at the end of the rotation period — one hundred 

 years. The trees in No. 3 run from one hundred to one 

 hundred and twenty feet in height, and average about one 

 hundred cubic feet in bulk of trunk, producing fine, clean, 

 white deal that is used for a great variety of purposes. The 

 engraving shows the edge of a " clear cut," and the trees are 

 not marginal specimens but grown up in dense forest from the 

 beginning. What the exact weight of crop might be we did 

 not ascertain, but a glance at the number of trees on the 

 ground showed that it must be enormous. No. 3 shows but 

 a short stretch of forest, throughout the same, and a practical 

 forester will form a very good idea from the plate how much 

 timber an acre is likely to contain. 



In proceeding to thin any forest compartment for the first 

 time (Plate 2) the German forester simply clears out the dead 

 and dominated or smothered trees, afterwards collecting the 

 small and worst for firewood, and putting rails and small poles 

 aside for stakes and fencing purposes. The second thinning is 

 regulated on the same principle as the first, but it is seldom 

 executed till the trees have reached small pole dimensions of 

 from two-and-a-half to three and four feet — the firs being-peeled 

 by the axe in the forest and prepared for delivery to the 

 consumer. The period between the first and second thinnings 

 depends on the progress of the trees, but in any case a period 



