128 FORESTRY IN GERMANY. 



such exist they are mainly swamps. These are first drained and then planted 

 with young fir and pine trees {pinus sylvestris). Now and then the larch 

 {larix Europcea) and the black pine (^pinus Austriaca) are u?ed for the same 

 purpose, but experience in some parts of the country has shown that the two 

 last named species soon fall a prey to insects. 



In the duchy of Saxe-Meiningen much has been done in the last twenty 

 or thirty years in the way of planting barren tracts of land with forest trees, 

 and it is done wherever it is thought that the result would be at all favorable. 

 Private owners generally plant these places for the needles that are used in 

 place of straw for littering cattle to obtain manure. 



Sand dunes are rarely found in Thuringia. There are many instances of 

 tree planting in such districts in Northern Germany, where foresters claim 

 that large tracts have been rendered productive by this means. The common 

 pine is the tree that is planted in sandy soils. 



DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS CAUSES AND RESULTS. 



Forests are destroyed by fire, by wind storms, and, to some extent, by 

 the heavy snow fall, which not unfrequently occurs in this section of the 

 country, and by insects. 



The ravages of these insects, however, seldom spread over any considera- 

 ble tract of woodland \ they are usually checked at the very beginning. The 

 watchful eye of the efficient forester, in making his daily rounds through the 

 woods, never misses anything of that sort, and vigorous steps are taken at 

 once to get rid of these vermin. 



A good forester knows immediately by the sickly look of the trees that 

 they are infested with insects, and those badly damaged are removed 

 altogether, while trees that are less affected receive a radical cleaning until 

 the purpose of extermination has been accomplished. As a means of pre- 

 venting insects from spreading in the forests all unhealthy trees are speedily 

 felled and taken away, for they are much more unlikely to enter sound trees. 

 Young trees are seldom troubled by insects. Usually the presence of the 

 destroyer is only to be feared after the trees are thirty years old. 



Much destruction occurs from fires. They are usually the result of care- 

 lessness. Since the existing forest regulations do not permit the litter that 

 falls upon the ground to be removed it is but natural that it will in course of 

 time accumulate enough to become a great danger to the forest when dry, in 

 which condition it burns like tinder, and is most easily ignited. Thus dry 

 litter, by accident or otherwise, not seldom causes disastrous conflagrations 

 in forests. 



My informant relates a case of his own experience, in which a fine forest 

 was set on fire and partially burned by a cigar stump carelessly thrown away 

 by his friend, in whose company he was strolling along the forest road. 



Districts thus destroyed are at once replanted, and the relative amount of 

 forest and cultivated land constantly remains about the same. "Of course the 

 districts thus affected are too small to have any remarkable effect on the 



