TIMBER; FORESTRY 
management and is directed toward the 
maintenance of our existing forests in 
the most productive condition possible 
and the establishment of new areas of 
woodland. -Forestry has long received 
much attention in most parts of cen- 
tral and northern Europe, but among 
us it is only beginning to assert itself as 
a subject which must be taken into ac- 
count to insure continued national pros- 
perity. Coming to a heavily wooded 
country, our early colonists felt that 
the woods were their natural enemies, 
hindrances to farming operations, and 
lurking places for Indians and wild 
beasts. The forests were rapidly cut 
down and burned, and it did not occur 
to most people until this wholesale de- 
struction had gone on for more than a 
century and a half that our timber 
lands formed one of the most impor- 
tant portions of our natural resources. 
421. Forest Management. — This is 
too technical a subject to be treated 
in any detail in a high-school botany, 
though there is much of the element- 
ary part of it which is quite within the 
reach of high-school pupils. A few of 
the main principles are as follows: 
(1) Only mature trees should be cut, 
unless saplings are needed for special 
d 
Fie. 237.. Effect of 
thinning out on For- 
est Growth. 
The figure represents part 
of the cross-section of 
a fir tree, about half 
natural size; the early 
growth from a to b was 
‘very slow, as the young 
tree was shaded by 
spruces ; from} tocthe 
growth was morerapid, 
as part of the spruces 
were blown down by a 
storm in 1871; fromc to 
d the growth was still 
more rapid, as the re- 
maining spruces were 
destroyed by a storm 
in 1885-1886. 
1 See Roth’s First Book of Forestry, Ginn & Company. 
