376 



The National Geographic Magazine 



From Gifford Piuchot, Forester 



An Exceedingly Productive Spruce Forest in Bavaria 



in British India they have met and an- 

 swered many questions which still con- 

 front the American forester, and in a 

 little more than thirty years have cre- 

 ated a forest service of great merit and 

 high achievement. The United States 

 has scarcely yet begun. 



THE FOREST IN EARLY TIMES 



In very early times the forest was 

 preserved for the game it contained. 

 Forestry then meant the art of hunting, 

 and had very little to do with the care 

 of trees. Even the word forest, which 

 really comes from the Eatin /oris, mean- 

 ing out of doors, was thought in Eng- 

 land to be derived from the fact that it 

 was a place given up to wild animals 



for rest. But gradually the forest came 

 to be considered more than the game, 

 and the serious study of forestry began. 



MODERN FORESTRY 



Forestry as a science is of compara- 

 tively recent origin, although a work 

 in which all the European trees are de- 

 scribed was one of the earliest printed 

 books. Until the end of the eighteenth 

 century forestry was discussed chiefly 

 by men who were either scholars or 

 practical woodsmen, but who were not 

 both. Then appeared Hartig and Cotta, 

 two men who united these points of 

 view, and their writings are at the base 

 of the whole modern growth of the sub- 

 ject. Both were German. Each cov- 



