180 MODERN i?OEEST ECONOMY. 



attentiou given in it to ultimate, and it may be distant, 

 results, this assumes in it greater importance than it does 

 in other circumstances and under other conditions. 



By all of these measures conjointly and severally, and 

 by every operation pertaining to them, the forests are by 

 steady advance being brought into greater accordance 

 with what is required for the most efficient working of the 

 method of exploitation adopted, including uniformity of 

 vigorous vegetation and growth ; and thus the amelioration 

 of the forests is secured as efficiently as if it had been the 

 only object for the attainment of which everything had 

 been done. 



I have cited opinions expressed by Captain Campbell- 

 Walker in his Reports on Forest Management in Germany. In 

 a republication of this, he says of scientific forestry, such 

 as is practised in Germany : — ' The main object aimed 

 at in any system of scientific forestry is, in the first instance, 

 the conversion of any tract or tracts of natural forest, 

 which generally contain trees of all ages and descriptions, 

 young and old, good and bad, growing too thickly in one 

 place and too thinly in another, into what is termed in 

 German, a GescMossener Bestand (close or compact forest), 

 consisting of trees of the better descriptions, and of the 

 same age or period, divided into blocks, and capable of 

 being worked, i.e, thinned out, felled, and reproduced or 

 replanted, in rotation, a block or part of a block being 

 taken in hand each year. In settling and carrying out 

 such a system, important considerations and complications 

 present themselves, such as the relation of the particular 

 block, district, or division, to the whole forest system of 

 the province ; the requirements of the people, not only as 

 regards timber and firewood, but straw, litter, and leaves 

 for manure, and pasturage ; the geological and chemical 

 formation and properties of the soil ; and the situation as 

 regards the prevailing winds, on which the felling must 

 always depend, in order to decrease the chances of damage 



