FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 339 



as it may be necessary often to allow some to remain for seeding purposes or some 

 other function which they may fulfill; and, for technical reasons, it may be necessary to 

 remove, here and there, trees which have not attained their full growth. This method 

 is known as that of "forest selection." 



Second: By dividing the forest into a number of blocks corresponding to the 

 number of years required for the trees to attain their full growth, and cutting one of 

 these blocks each year, the land thus denuded being replanted immediately. By this 

 system, the cutting must necessarily correspond in quantity to the annual growth, 

 and in time the forest, under proper management, will attain the maximum of yield. 

 This method is known as that of the "high forest," "compartment," or "rotation." 



Third : By use of what is termed the coppice system, in which the woods are 

 composed of species which will sprout or grow from stumps or roots. This method 

 cannot be used in a forest of conifers, as these trees will not sprout from the stump. 

 It is available where the product is needed for charcoal, fuel, fence posts, poles, cooper- 

 age, and wood of small dimensions ; but it is not adapted to the production of timber, 

 boards and planks. Under this system, the woods deteriorate, and never become a 

 high forest. At times the forests have been managed under some variation of these 

 methods, and in some places the management has been conducted under a combination 

 of all three. But the most successful results have been obtained under the system 

 based on a rotation of cuttings and plantings in fractional blocks. 



The old forests of Europe, which have been under careful, systematic culture, for a 

 century or more, yield, on an average, a net annual revenue of about $2.50 per acre. 

 There is a small forest in Switzerland which yields $4.90 per acre annually over and 

 above all expenses. The forests of Saxony also produce an annual net revenue of 

 over $4.00 per acre. The private forests show similar results, although, as a whole, 

 they are not so well managed as those belonging to the government or to the 

 communes. As the private forests exceed the others greatly in area, it is fair to 

 assume that in the aggregate they yield a fair interest on the investment, or they 

 would not be maintained as such. 



The fact that the European forests, under their conservative management, have 

 proved a good interest-bearing investment, which has resulted in their preservation, has 

 caused a demand from our people that the forests of this country shall be placed under 

 a similar method of treatment, and that our woodlands should be managed in 

 accordance with European methods. But the people of the United States who are 

 demanding " scientific forestry," as they are pleased to term it, ignore the wide 

 difference in our economic conditions. In Europe the forest administration has the 

 advantage of cheap labor and a high market, while with us these conditions are 

 reversed. If this were the only difference, we could adopt the conservative system 



