80 



Remarks on Germany. 



The Indian commissioner proceeds to remark on the German system of forestry. 

 Perhaps it will be here admissible that I make one myself. Let me say that, when we 

 consider the immense extent and rapid growth of forests in India, the vast amount in 

 Government hands, and yet find that they are so rapidly deteriorating as to necessitate 

 the despatch of commissioners to Europe to learn the methods of preserving the forest, 

 it is likely that Canada has just as much reason to bestir herself in the matter. Let us 

 notice also, by some of the valuable tables Capt. Walker has furnished, that in Germany 

 and Prussia alone there are nearly two hundred and fifty millions of acres of forests. 

 We will well have already understood, by the foregoing pages, how different the great 

 mass of these forests, with their great reserves of growing and well cared for trees, 

 planned and prepared for many years, so that the forest can be depended on to give its 

 regular and annual yield of valuable timber in perpetuity, are from our Canadian 

 reserves, which are cut without regard to the future, and are fast disappearing before the 

 combined assault of the settler and the lumberman. 



On asking, where are we to look for a model or precedent on which to work, he 

 replies " To Germany, where the management of forests by the State has been carried 

 on for hundreds of years. Not the mere planting of a few h\indred acres here, or 

 reserving a few thousand acres there, but a general system of forest management, com- 

 mencing by a careful survey, stock-taking, definition and commutation of all rights and 

 servitudes, careful experiments in the rate of growth, the best soil for each description 

 of tree ; in fact, in every branch of the subject, And resulting in what we find to-day, 

 hundreds of thousands of acres mapped, divided into periods and blocks, and worked to 

 the best advantage both with regard to present and future, and the annual yield of which 

 now, and for many years to come, is known and fixed to within a few hundred cubic 

 feet." 



"The great difference," says the commissioner, "in climate and local conditions 

 between India and Germany would, doubtless, necessitate important modifications, but I 

 can see no reason why the broad principles of organization and forest management should 

 not be applied with success to our Indian forests, that is, gradually feeling our way as 

 regards the best mode for the forest, and the wishes and interests of the people and the 

 State." 



I would here remark that this is still more applicable to Canada, as our climate 

 presents no difference of moment. 



"I do not think," he continues, " that we have much to learn from the Germans 

 with regard to the planting and rearing of young trees ; but it is with regard to the 

 best method of managing groups or plantations that I consider we may, with advantage, 

 take a leaf out of their book. For instance, I would certainly introduce, in an experi- 

 mental manner, and on a very small scale, their system of rotation, clearing, and periods, and 

 endeavour to bring forward a second crop before the first is off the ground, encourage the 

 growth of the better descriptions, and keep down the least valuable, so as gradually to 

 arrive at groups of trees of the same age, description, and class, and eventually at blocks 

 worked in rotation, and containing always a sufficient stock of crop coming on to meet 

 the requirements of future years. To arrive at all this the most careful observations and 

 experiments will have to be made as to the rate of growth and yield per acre of each 

 description of forest, the conditions under which trees grow best and form the most 

 timber, some requiring close and some open planting, some nurses and some not ; some, 

 like the oak, requiring a great deal of light, while some, like the beech, do best for many 

 years in the shade. AU these points, and many more, demand attention, and till they are- 



