35 
by codperation, by a well-conducted army, attacking the enemy under 
a comprehensive plan, sysbematically and methodically carried out by 
generalship, commanding knowledge, means, and power, such as a gov- 
ernment alone, be it State or General Government, can command. The 
present plan of allowing the skirmishers to waste their energy, their 
lives, is cruelty and bad generalship. 
HOW TO PLANT. 
Volumes might be written on the proper methods of forest-planting 
on the plains. I shall confine myself to only one chapter, and of this 
give only the merest synopsis, namely, the one on the selection of spe- 
cies for planting, with reference to the preservation of soil humidity. 
For in this chapter we learn the difference between tree-planting and 
forest-planting, a difference which I fear has not found much consider- 
ation by nurseyman and planters. 
To establish forest conditions must be the first aim of the forest 
planter. 
Forest conditions, as we find them in the natural forest, consist in 
dense growth, mixed growth, undergrowth. By so much as any one 
of these conditions is deficient or lacking, by so much is the forest short 
of the ideal. Reduced evaporation is forest condition. Shade reduces 
- evaporation. Dense growth furnishes not only straight clear timber, 
but shade. Mixed growth alone can preserve a continuous shade for 
along time. Undergrowth assists in keeping the ground shaded. 
The forest planter, then, may learn a lesson from nature in recogniz- 
ing these conditions as desirable ones and worthy of imitation; but he 
will also not forget that man is wiser for human ends than nature ; that 
he works with an object which nature does not recognize; that he must 
intelligently improve on nature’s methods to reach his own end, which 
is the economical production of material or conditions. The value of 
time, which is no factor in nature’s caiculations ; the value of land, of 
which nature has an abundance, make it necessary for man to intensify 
his methods. Thus he will reduce the dense growth from the maximum 
of nature’s planting to the “optimum” (most favorable) of most rapid 
and plentiful production ; he will substitute for the chance mixture of 
species, which in the natural forest is the result of a free fight for ex- 
istence among the different occupants of the ground, a combination 
which is chosen with intelligence and to produce the most desirable 
results in the shortest time. 
In this selection from among the species which are capable of thriv- 
ing in this locality and soil, and which are yielding the most desirable 
material, three points must guide the planter : 
(1) Their relative capacity for preserving and increasing favorable 
conditions ; 
(2) Their relative dependence for development on light and shade ; 
(3) Their relative rate of height growth. 
