- 
II. FORESTRY IN A WOODED COUNTRY, 
OR 
FOREST MANAGEMENT. 
If left to itself, without interference of man, nature would keep the 
entire earth, with few excepted localities, under forest cover. It is only 
when man interferes that this tendency of nature is either frustrated or 
_ turned to advantage for the objects of man. If the latter, then we may 
speak of forest management, and we understand by “‘management” the 
bestowal of care, giving direction and applying economy in the use of 
natural resources. 
OBJECTS OF FOREST MANAGEMENT. 
Forest management has two objects in view: 
1. To produce and reproduce certain useful material. 
2. To sustain or possibly improve certain advantageous natural con- 
ditions. 
In the first case we treat the forest as a crop, which we harvest from 
the soil, taking care to devote the land to repeated reproduction of 
crops. As agriculture is practiced for the purpose of producing food 
crops, so forestry is in the first place concerned in the production of 
wood crops, both attempting to create values from the soil. 
In the second case we add to the first conception of the forest as a 
crop another, namely, that of a cover to the soil, which under certain 
conditions and in certain locations bears a very important relation to 
other conditions of life. 
The favorable influence which the forest growth exerts in preventing 
the washing of the soil and in retarding the torrential flow of water, 
and also in checking the winds and thereby reducing rapid evapora- 
tion, further in facilitating subterranean drainage and influencing cli- 
matic conditions, on account of which it is desirable to preserve certain 
parts of the natural forest growth and extend it elsewhere—this favor- 
able influence is due to the dense cover of foliage mainly, and to the 
mechanical obstruction which the trunks and the litter of the forest 
floor offer. 
Any kind of tree growth would answer this purpose, and all the for- 
est management necessary would be to simply abstain from interfer- 
ence and leave the ground to nature’s kindly action. 
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