FORESTRY IN SWITZERLAND. 203 



The foregoing report is necessarily very fragmentary and incomplete from 

 the various and extensive ground covered by the series of questions submitted 

 and the inexhaustible mass of federal and cantonal legislation bearing on the 

 subject of forest culture and preservation. 



It is respectfully subrnitted, with the hope that the Department may be 

 enabled from the results of its inquiry to favorably present not only to the 

 consideration of our General and State Governments, but to the many persons 

 of fortune in the United States who are addicted to the practice of agriculture 

 as a sort of serious amusement, devoting themselves to the rearing of purely- 

 bred stock, that forestry presents a field for their enterprise both interesting 

 and useful. Why should it not be quite as fascinating to watch the develop- 

 ment of a collection of trees as that of a herd or flock? And aside from the 

 personal gratification, a man of public spirit can be assured that he is making 

 helpful additions to the sum of experimental knowledge on a most important 

 subject. It is rapidly becoming, in the vast and treeless West, a profitable 

 business enterprise, sought by many as a permanent investment. It is in that 

 section of our country that sylviculture and forest management are being 

 recognized as of paramount interest. 



It is true that land-holders who are accustomed to garner crops in a hun- 

 dred days from planting have a natural shrinking from seed which may not 

 mature a crop in a hundred years. But it can be shown that growing wood 

 on waste land enhances the value of the remainder of the farm by more than 

 the planting and care have cost; that the first installment of a forest crop is 

 not so remote as is generally believed; that the tree growth enriches rather 

 than impoverishes the ground, and that the best varieties of wood can be 

 grown as easily as the poorest, while the demand for forest products is rapidly 

 becoming more urgent ; that forestry not only beautifies the farm, but between 

 woodland and plowland is restored that balance which must be preserved to 

 insure the most equable distribution of moisture and climatic conditions most 

 favorable to the productiveness of the soil and the better health of the people. 



BOYD WINCHESTER, 



Consul- General. 



United States Consulate-General, 



Berne, January 14, 1887. 



ZURICH. 



REPORT OF CONSUL CATLIN. 



For no country in the world is the subject of forestry invested with a greater 

 importance than for Switzerland, the land of crag and torrent, where every 

 streamlet may, unless its flow be regulated and controlled, become in an in- 

 credibly short time a raging torrent, leaving death and destruction in its path, 

 or where the careless cutting away of a few trees from a hillside, is almost 

 certain to bring down an avalanche of earth and rock sufficient, as in the case 



