CHAPTER VIII 
ESTHETIC FORESTRY OR WOODLAND PARK 
MANAGEMENT ! 
It is questionable whether this remark of 
Goethe’s is as true to-day as it was in his 
time. It seems that we have entered upon a period when 
the esthetic aspects of our surroundings occupy us almost 
to the extent to which the old Greeks were accustomed to 
develop them. At least, a momentum has been set up by 
the preachers of the beautiful which bids fair to carry us on 
in this direction with little effort. 
Forestry as a useful occupation has struggled hard, if 
not as yet in vain, for recognition in this country; it is prac 
tically still an unknown art, and now we are already discuss- 
ing esthetic forestry. Forestry is, in the first place, not one 
of the esthetic arts, but an industrial art, the object of which 
is similar to that of agriculture; namely, the management 
of the soil for the production of wood crops. Yet the nat- 
ural beauty, the sylvan charm and woodsy flavor of a forest, 
suggest readily the esthetic element which stimulates our 
artistic sense. Indeed, sylvan beauty is an “inevitable by- 
product of the forest.” 
Even the forester, whose business it is to grow logs rather 
1 Parts of this chapter were published before in Second Report of the 
American Park and Outdoor Art Association, 1898 
185 
