15 
secure? Not trees merely—which, to besure, would satisfy the require- 
ment of maintaining forest,conditions, and which nature produces with- 
out assistance—nor is it wood simply that is sought by the forest man- 
ager; that, too, is produced by nature without his interference, but it 
is useful wood—wood of qualities that make it applicable to his needs, 
and, further than that, he so directs nature as to produce and reproduce 
the largest amount of the most useful wood on the smallest area possi- 
ble and with the least expenditure of energy or money. That is the 
task of the forester and of forest management. 
Forestry in a wooded country means harvesting the wood crop in 
such a manner that the forest will reproduce itself in the same if not in 
superior composition of kinds. Reproduction, then, is the aim of the 
forest manager, and the difference between the work of the lumberman 
and that of the forester consists mainly in this: that the forester cuts 
his trees with a view of securing valuable reproduction, while the lum- 
berman cuts without this view, or at least without the knowledge as to 
how this reproduction can be secured and directed at will. The effi- 
cient forest manager requires no other tool than the ax and saw—the 
planting tools being needed only to correct his mistakes—but he uses 
them differently from the lumberman. 
And what are the methods of forest management ? 
Admirers of European forest management, as well as the knownoth- 
ings who consider it inapplicable to our conditions, very often confound 
the administrative features with the technical management. 
To cut a given equal amount of wood yearly, as is done more or less 
strictly in most European government forests, is a purely administrative 
measure, just as a miné Owner may propose to take from his property 
annually an equal amount of coal. To cut over acertain area and take 
out a certain number of trees because it is a seed year and we want to 
take advantage of it for reproduction, and in order to secure that satis- 
factorily remove a certain amount of the shade—that is a technical 
measure, just as the proper proportioning of coal and ore and flux to 
make iron. 
The administrative measures in vogue in European forest manage- 
ment we may perhaps not think desirableor suitable to our country and 
conditions, but the technical measures as far as they are based upon 
natural laws and proved by experience proper for the object in view 
will have to be adopted with the necessary modifications if we wish to 
attain proper forest management. 
Before, however, we may apply he finer methods of forestry management 
as practiced abroad, it will be well enough to begin with common-sense man- 
agement, which consists in avoiding unnecessary waste, in protecting against 
Jive, in keeping out cattle where young growth is to be fostered, and in not 
preventing by malpractice the natural reforestation. 
