INTRODUCTORY. 
The value of studying the historical development of 
,an economic subject or of a technical art which, like for- 
estry, relies to a large extent upon empiricism, lies in the 
fact that it brings before us, in proper perspective, ac- 
cumulated experience, and enables us to analyze cause 
and effect, whereby we may learn to appreciate the rea- 
sons for present conditions and the possibilities for ra- 
tional advancement. 
If there be one philosophy more readily derivable than 
another from the study of the history of forestry it is 
that history repeats itself. The same policies and the 
same methods which we hear propounded to-day have at 
some other time been propounded and tried elsewhere: 
we can study the results, broaden our judgment and 
avoid the mistakes of others. 
Such study, if properly pursued, tends to free the 
mind from many foolish prejudices and particularly 
from an unreasonable partiality for our own country 
and its customs and methods, merely because they are 
our own, substituting the proper patriotism, which ap- 
plies the best knowledge, wherever found, to our own 
necessities. 
Nowhere is the record of experience and the historic 
method of study of more value than in an empiric art 
like forestry, in which it takes decades, a lifetime, nay 
a century to see the final effects of operations. ‘ 
Forestry is an art born of necessity, as opposed to arts 
