TIMBER; FORESTRY 



349 



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 



Fir;. 237. Effect of 

 thinning out on For- 

 est Growtli. 



The figure represents part 

 of the cross-sect ion of 

 a fir tree, about half 

 natural size; the early 

 gro-sTth from a to 6 was 

 very slow, as the young 

 tree was shaded by 

 spruces ; from i to e the 

 growth was more rapid, 

 as part of the spruces 

 were blown down by a 

 stf)rm in 1871 ; from c to 

 d the growth was still 

 more rapid, as the re- 

 maining spruces were 

 destroyed by a storm 

 in I880-I886. 



1 See Roth's First Book of Forestry, Ginn & Company. 



