24 
light-needing species (like ash, oak, pine, larch) must have much more 
light than the shade-enduring (like maple, beech, spruce, hemlock) in 
order to develop at all satisfactorily. 
It may be of interest here to state that through the means of thin- 
nings the product per acre in the same time may be increased from 
three to five times of what the result would be were the forest left to 
itself. 
Enough has been stated in the foregoing remarks to give an idea of 
what the object and in general the methods of forestry management 
are. The owner of a small wood lot can apply it to his few acres as well 
as the lumber king owning thousands of acres; the private citizen and 
the town or county as well as the State may carry on forest man- 
agement. Ouly, as shown before, where, as in extensive mountain 
regions, a very conservative policy is necessary in order not to disturb 
advantageous natural conditions of soil cover and water flow, and where 
on that account forest management becomes more difficult and less 
profitable, communal or State ownership will be preferable. 
EUROPEAN GOVERNMENT FORESTRY. 
Contrary to the ideas prevalent in the United States, European gov- 
ernments hold but a small fraction of the forest area and do not con- 
trol, except in special cases and within certain limitations, the forest 
property held by private owners. In Germany less than one-third of 
the forest area is managed by the government, and 19 per cent owned 
by communities and corporate institutions is under more or less direct 
control (mostly advisory) of the government. Nearly one-half, there- 
fore, is in private hands and beyond control. 
Since, however, much of this private forest area has been held for 
centuries in large estates, its management is of a conservative kind, 
and being administered by trained foresters, is often as good and some- 
times superior to the government management; the efficient officers of 
the government frequently aiding, with their counsel, the private own- 
ers. In the western provinces and southern states the farmer owns his 
wood lot in fee simple, just as the American farmer does, but having 
learned the value of keeping his wood lot in a continually paying and 
reproducing condition, he reaps from it as regular an income as from 
his other crops, 
In Austria not more than 13 per cent of the forest area is under 
government administration. The sad and disastrous consequences 
which the reckless devastation and abuse of these mostly mountain 
forests by their private owners has brought upon whole communities 
adjoining have lately led to a more stringent and general supervision . 
of the management of communal and private forests by the government 
than elsewhere. In Switzerland, since 1874, the federal government, 
