go FORESTRY IN GERMANY. 



forest literature, knowledge of hunting, laws relating to same, etc., natural 

 history of wood and forest culture and of forest trees, the uses of the forests, 

 their benefits, etc., and their technology, methods for laying and building 

 roads, paths, and waterways, analytical geometry, differential and integral 

 calculus, forest management, valuation, appraising, forest care, forest police 

 system, forest and hunting rights, and the general scope of the civil laws, 

 national or political economy, the science of finance, general land and forest 

 culture, agriculture, culture of plants and meadow culture. The lectures on 

 these subjects may be heard at a technical high school, or in any other school 

 or academy adapted specially for this purpose. The course of such lectures 

 extends over three years as a rule. Two things contribute to the Germans 

 obtaining the vast amount of useful, theoretical, practical, mechanical, chem- 

 ical, and scientific knowledge : his indomitable patience and his devotion to 

 whatever profession he chooses in life. 



DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS. 



To my questions upon this subject there was a peculiar unanimity in the 

 expression of opinions. In every well regulated state, said almost every for- 

 ester with whom I conferred, which exercises a supervisory control over its 

 forests and woods, and which looks after the welfare of its people, the health 

 of its inhabitants, the preservation of a thorough and beneficial influence of 

 the moisture of the atmosphere upon the agricultural industries, &c. , no de- 

 struction or devastation of forests occur. At times when 'hurricanes come, 

 fires occur, or insects come in swarms, or other accidental cases occur, 

 entirely or partially dangerous to the forests, they are of such a local nature 

 that they may be easily dealt with. Of course, the danger will be measured 

 by the completeness, more or less, of the control over the forest and wood 

 areas. In cases, however, where, as often happens in France, Spain, and 

 Italy, the state forests are sold to private parties, the town woods and forests 

 are subject to mere caprice or arbitrariness. The private woods and forests 

 are, so to say, free from rule, regulation, or restriction, and calamities the 

 most frightful and dreadful sometimes occur : the spriiigs dry up, the rains 

 cease to fall upon the dry, parched earth (moisture of the atmosphere being 

 no longer attracted by the presence of trees), or if they do come, come down 

 with such a rush that floods and general destruction of property, oftentimes 

 accompanied with loss of life, occur; the climate becomes poisoned for both 

 man and beast, and vegetation suffers terribly, if it does not disappear, as it 

 often does, entirely; the people grow poor in pocket, lose much of their 

 aesthetic feeling, their mental, spiritual, and bodily life suffer, disease, even 

 pestilence, follow, and where once were green fields, purling streams, bab- 

 bling brooks, grazing cattle, happy, busy, prosperous, contented people, 

 under the shadows of health-exhaling pines, grand old oaks, or fruitful 

 beeches, one sees ruin, death and desolation. Just at the moment of writing 

 dispatches are bringing to the different newspapers reports of terrible losses 

 by landslides in the Black Forest {Schwarzwald^, the Baden Highlands, and 



