172 Modern Forest ficoNOMY. 



quality. From biographies of Hartig aad Cotta by Givin- 

 ner in Forstliche MittheUungen, it is evident that the works 

 of Vareane de Feuille were not unknown to these distin- 

 guished foresters. A translation of some of the works of 

 Duhamel into German was published in 1763, from 

 which it may be inferred that works of the French students 

 of the physiology of vegetation were known in Germany 

 and valued there. 



The Meth^de Si, tire et aire had been foreshadowed in a 

 system of forest managemenfc enjoined on his forest 

 administrators by Count Mansfeldt in ioS5. And as the 

 method of exploitation so designated may be considered 

 an evolution or development of this of an earlier diate, so 

 may this La Methode des Gompartements or Die Fachwerhe 

 mMhod, as it is called in Germany, be considered a further 

 development of that. What we owe to Hartig and Cotta is 

 that they, in their circumstances, as did the others in theirs, 

 made such an application of the knowledge in their posses-' 

 sibn —partly inherited, partly acquired by them through 

 careful observations, and by experiments in which they were 

 aided by disciples whom they had fired with a like spirit-^ 

 as issued in the development of an improved forest 

 economy which commanded the approval of foresters in 

 their own day, and the adoption of their devices by others 

 to such an extent that forests which were going fast to 

 destruction have been saved; and not only men of our 

 own day, but generations yet unborn, are likely to reap 

 the benefit. 



The exposition which has been given of forest exploita- 

 tion in accordance with La Methode des Gompartements may 

 suffice to give some idea of the general principles upon 

 which it is conducted, substituting the exploitation of 

 divisions of the forest yielding equal or equivalent pro- 

 ducts, for the exploitation of areas of extent, in equal 

 periods. But while this is the principle upon which it is 

 conducted, it is the case that in the application of the 

 principle to the exploitation of a forest there are many 



