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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol.XLVII 



The natural selection forms also the basis of the for- 

 ester's operation in selecting trees for seeding purposes, 

 in making regeneration cuttings, in collecting seed for re- 

 forestation and so on. 



These few facts are enough to show with what fullness 

 and force the principles advanced by Darwin are ex- 

 pressed in the forest. If agriculture furnished Darwin 

 with many examples of artificial selection upon which he 

 built by analogy his principle of natural selection, the 

 forest, of all plant formations, furnishes the most strik- 

 ing examples and proof of the latter. As a matter of fact, 

 'forestry as an art is nothing else but the controlling and 

 regulating of the struggle for existence for the practical 

 ends of man; forestry as a science is nothing else but the 

 study of the laws which govern the struggle for existence. 



Is there anything strange, therefore, that it was a for- 

 ester who first formulated the principles of natural se- 

 lection? Is there anything strange, also, in the fact that 

 it was also foresters who have laid the foundation for 

 what has come to be known as ecology, which is the log- 

 ical development of Darwinism? Because of the fact 

 that the forest is the highest expression of plant life, the 

 foresters occupy the strategic position from which they 

 command vistas accessible only with difficulty to other 

 naturalists. In this lies the strength of forestry, its pe- 

 culiar beauty, and the debt which science owes to it. 



