:tures on Forestry 
 
 By 
 P.E. Fernow
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 FORESTRY 
 
 Lectures by Prof. Fernow 
 
 KINGSTON, 1903.
 
 LECTURES ON FORESTRY 
 
 -BY- 
 
 B. E. FERNOW, LL.D., 
 
 DIRECTOR OF NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE 
 OF FORESTRY. 
 
 Delivered at the School of Mining, Kingston, Ontario, 
 January 26th-3Oth, 1903. 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 THE BRITISH WHIG, KINGSTON, ONTARIO, 
 1903.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 These lectures are the outcome of the efforts of Queen's University 
 and the Kingston School of Mining to place before the people of .Canada 
 the leading principles of forestry in such a way as to make a beginning in 
 forestry educatipn. Dr. Fernow had previously (Jan. 21st, 1901) lec- 
 tured here at a conference called 'to consider the best means for the preser- 
 vation and renewal of our forests, for using them to advantage, and for 
 providing proper education to these ends.' The interest aroused by this 
 lecture and the conference which followed it decided the Board of Gover- 
 nors of the School of Mining to proceed with the establishment of a Depart- 
 ment of Forestry in connection with the School, a project which had been 
 cherished for several years. The Premier and the Minister of Education 
 of Ontario looked favorably upon the proposal, and substantial aid was 
 promised, to be given as soon as the buildings under construction afforded 
 space for the new department. 
 
 The lectures which follow were delivered during the last week of 
 January, and were attended by the advanced students of engineering, 
 economics and biology. They were fully reported by the leading- 
 newspapers of Canada, and forestry at once became a subject of 
 discussion in the public press. It was everywhere recognized that the 
 School of Mining had made an important advance in education, and that 
 these lectures, the first course on forestry given in Canada, were to be re- 
 corded as a historical event of great significance, marking as they did the 
 beginning of a new outlook upon one of our greatest industries. 
 
 At the close of the lectures a committee of lumbermen and other 
 friends of the movement was formed to assist in establishing the School of 
 Forestry. The names of the committee are given below. The local mem- 
 bers of this committee decided to print and publish the lectures, and this has 
 now been done with the sanction of the Board of Governors. 
 
 The cuts illustrating Lecture X. were kindly lent by the Western So- 
 ciety of Engineers, Chicago. Mr. H. W. Wilson has also supplied a num- 
 ber of illustrations from his unique collection of negatives. Dr. Fernow 
 revised the proof sheets and selected a number of the illustrations. The 
 Committee desires to take this opportunity of thanking him for his co- 
 operation. 
 
 Most of the subjects dealt with have been treated more at length in 
 Professor Fernow's lately published work on The Economics of Forestry. 
 
 COMMITTEE. 
 
 Hon. Wm. Harty, M.P., Chairman Kingston 
 
 Hiram Calvin, M.P., Vice-Chairman Kingston 
 
 Edw. J. B. Pense, M.P.P Kingston
 
 T. W. Nash, C. E Kingston 
 
 R. J. Craig, Esq Kingston 
 
 J. H. Birkett, Esq Kingston 
 
 G. M . Macdonnell, K. C Kingston 
 
 R. Carr-Harris, C. E Kingston 
 
 E. T. Steacy, Esq Kingston 
 
 E. W. Rathbun, Esq Deseronto 
 
 W. C. Caldwell, M.P.P Lanark 
 
 S. Russell, M.P.P Deseronto 
 
 A. T. Drummond, LL.D Toronto 
 
 Jas. McFadden, Esq Renfrew 
 
 D. C. Cameron, M.P.P Rat Portage 
 
 John Bertram, Esq Toronto 
 
 John MacLaren, Esq Brockville 
 
 M. Avery, M. P Sharbot Lake 
 
 W. C. Edwards, M. P : Ottawa 
 
 Hon. E. H. Bronson Ottawa 
 
 J. R. Bootn, Esq Ottawa 
 
 C. Jackson Booth, Esq Ottawa 
 
 E. B. Eddy, Esq Ottawa 
 
 Hon. Peter White .' Pembroke 
 
 Thos. Mackie, M.P Pembroke 
 
 Henry Cargill, M. P Cargill 
 
 Gillies Bros Braeside 
 
 John Mather, Esq Ottawa 
 
 Hiram Robinson, Esq Ottawa 
 
 E. C. XV hitney, Esq Ottawa 
 
 McLaren Bros Buckingham 
 
 XValter Beatty, M.P Delta 
 
 McLaughlin Bros Arnprior 
 
 F. J. Campbell, Esq Canada Paper Co., Windsor Mills 
 
 XV. L. Goodwin, Secretary Kingston 
 
 Kingston, March 20th, 1903.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lecture I The Forest as a Resource, and Forest Industries. - - 7 
 
 Lecture II. What is Forestry ? ....._ 15 
 
 Lecture III. How Trees Grow. (Illustrated). 17 
 
 Lecture IV. The Evolution of a Forest Growth. (Illustrated). - 22 
 
 Lecture V. Silviculture, or Methods of Forest Crop Production. - 37 
 
 Lecture VI. Lumberman and Forester. (Illustrated). - - - 48 
 
 Lecture VII.- Forest Economy or Business Methods. - - - - 59 
 
 Lecture VIII. Wood and Its Characteristics. (Illustrated). 65 
 
 Lecture IX. Forestry Policy. ..- 68 
 
 Lecture X. The Forester an Engineer. (Illustrated). - - - - 74
 
 \\H1TE PINE FOREST."
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 THE FOREST AS A RESOURCE. 
 
 It may be stated without fear of contradiction that outside of food 
 products' no material is so universally used and so indispensable in human 
 economy as wood, indeed, civilization is inconceivable without an abun- 
 dance of timber. 
 
 The nomad of to-day, who herds over the treeless plains and prairies, 
 is still like the Scythian of ancient times ; his life, his culture, his attain- 
 ments are no more advanced. The successful settlement and civilization 
 of our own treeless regions of the west became possible only through the 
 development of means for the transportation of this most needful material. 
 So general and far-reaching has its use become that a wood famine, how- 
 ever improbable its occurrence, would be almost as serious as a bread 
 famine. We may become less wasteful, both as regards food and wood, 
 but the necessity of wood, so far as we can foresee at present, will always 
 be second only to the necessity of food, and far greater than that of any 
 other material used in the arts. 
 
 Our civilization is built on wood. From the cradle to the coffin, in 
 some shape or other, it surrounds us as a convenience or a necessity. It 
 enters into nearly all our structures as an essential part. Over half our 
 people live in wooden' houses, and the houses of the other half require 
 wood as an indispensable part in their construction. It serves to orna- 
 ment them, to furnish them with conveniences, to warm them, to cook the 
 food. More than two-thirds of our people use wood as fuel, and until re- 
 cent times it was the only or principal means of smelting the ores and shap- 
 ing the metals with which to fashion the wood itself. For every hundred 
 tons of coal mined, two tons of mining timber are needed, and wood in 
 large quantities is needed to mine our metals. 
 
 Every pound of iron, every ounce of gold, requires wood in its min- 
 ing, wood in its manufacture, wood in its transportation. There is hardly 
 a utensil, a tool, or even a machine, in the construction of which wood has 
 not played a part, were it only to furnish the handle or the mould or pat- 
 tern. .,. 
 
 The articles, useful or ornamental, made wholly or in part of wood, 
 are innumerable. Our houses are filled with them, our daily occupations 
 necessitate them wherever we are. For our means of transportation we 
 rely mainly on wood. Our 260,000 miles of railroad track (190,000 miles 
 railroad in the U. S.), the carriers of civilization, lie on not less than 700,- 
 000,000 of wooden ties and need 140,000,000 annually for renewals ; they
 
 run over more than 2,000 miles of wooden trestles and bridges, they carry 
 their passengers and freight in over 1,000,000 wooden cars, and much of 
 the millions of tons of freight is shipped in wooden boxes and barrels, and 
 stored in wooden sheds. Ten million telegraph poles are needed to keep 
 up communication between distant markets. 
 
 The forest furnishes the cooperage to market our vintage, to store 
 our flour and fruit. The forest furnishes the plough handle and harrow 
 frame to cultivate, the threshing machine and windmill to prepare the 
 crops, the cart to bring them to market, the bottoms in which they cross 
 the ocean to foreign marts, and even the tar and pitch needed to keep the 
 cargo safe. While iron ships have largely replaced the wooden bottoms in 
 ocean travel, our coastwise and inland shipping, which requires in the 
 United States a tonnage twice as large as in the transatlantic trade, is car- 
 ried mostly in wooden ships. We are rocked in wooden cradles, play with 
 wooden toys, sit on wooden chairs and benches, eat from wooden tables, 
 use wooden desks, chests, trunks, are entertained by music from wooden 
 instruments, enlightened by information printed on wooden paper with 
 black ink made from wood, and even eat our salads seasoned with vinegar 
 made from wood. 
 
 The uses of wood, multifarious now, are constantly increasing. With 
 the manufacture of wood-pulp and cellulose, an entirely new direction of 
 use has been opened ; originally designed to furnish a cheap substitute for 
 linen paper, its application in many ways is growing daily, and promises 
 for the future the largest drain on our forest res&urces, the manufacture of 
 wood-pulp having increased more than three- fold in the last ten years. 
 
 To give briefly an idea of the extent of our own wood consumption, 
 (including exports), we may say that, if five persons are counted to a 
 family, each family in the United States and in Canada as well, uses on 
 an average about 3,000 cubic feet or about 120,000 pounds of dry wood 
 per year, the annual product of at least GO acres of forest. 
 
 The reasons for this universal and varied application of wood may be 
 found in several directions. Tn the first place, the general occurrence of 
 forest growth and the ease with which wood can be obtained and shaped 
 directly to the purpose in hand made it, naturally, the material of earlier 
 civilizations ; but there are certain qualities in addition which will make its 
 use always desirable, if not necessary. In the combination of strength, 
 stiffness, elasticity, and relatively light weight, it excels all other known 
 materials. Not only is a stick of long leaf pine superior in strength to one 
 of wrought iron of the same weight, but employed as a beam it will bear 
 without bending a load six to eight times as great as an iron bar of the 
 same length and weight. Moreover, the wooden beam will endure greater 
 distortion than the metals without receiving a "set" or permanent injury. 
 
 The ease with which it can be shaped and keeps its shape, the softness 
 and yet unchangeableness, but especially its non-conductivity of heat and
 
 of electricity, which makes its use more comfortable than that of metals, in 
 addition to its light specific weight and many other qualities, recommend it 
 for many purposes in preference to other materials. 
 
 But above all things, its cheapness recommends it. We are paying 
 now, leaving out fancy woods, at the most, 60 cents per cubic foot for the 
 best wcocl, shaped, as against $5 to $10 per cubic foot for iron in sheets or 
 bars. Moreover, it is the only material of construction which we can pro- 
 duce and reproduce at will, while we know that most other materials now 
 in use must be sooner or later exhausted. 
 
 Other materials have displaced wood in some uses, but other uses 
 have arisen for wood, and often the substitutes have again been displaced 
 by wood, when its superiority or peculiar qualities have been more fully 
 recognized. Even in such nicely balanced structures as the bicycle, for 
 which metal seemed the only proper material, wood has proved itself su- 
 perior, at least in certain parts. 
 
 A remarkable instance of this return to the use of wood instead of 
 metal is that for factory and warehouse construction in order to reduce 
 danger from fire, it having been found that in case of fire iron beams and 
 posts are twisted out of shape by the heat, causing the collapse of the whole 
 building, while with wooden posts and beams the chances of keeping the 
 walls intact are much greater. 
 
 Coal has largely displaced wood as fuel, yet according to the census 
 of 1880 more than half of the population relied still on wood for fuel, and 
 there is no reason to believe that the proportion has changed measurably. 
 
 In fact, if we may be allowed to consider the figures of the census of 
 1880 still proportionately true, as far as bulk is concerned, our fuel con- 
 sumption represents about three- fourths of our total wood consumption; 
 and even in value this part represents nearly one-half of our entire enor- 
 mous consumption of forest products of the United States, and exceeds in 
 bulk more than ten times the iron and steel handled in that country. 
 
 The development of the cellulose and wood-pulp industry with the 
 consequent extension in the use of paper, made from this material for all 
 kinds of purposes where elasticity and durability combined with strength 
 and lightness is demanded, from collars and cuffs and combs to car wheels, 
 has given new and constantly growing employment to wood. 
 
 Considering, moreover, the very extensive and the very varied em- 
 ployment of wood, it will be apparent that substitution by other materials 
 cannot be readily accomplished, and means inconvenience, and, in many 
 cases, decrease of comfort. Hence, large wood supplies are, and unques- 
 tionably will continue to be, an indispensable requirement of our civiliza- 
 tion, almost like water, air and food. 
 
 Besides wood supplies, the forest furnishes other material of no small 
 value. Of these, two classes at least give rise to industries of considerable 
 extent, namely, the tanning industry and the naval store industry.
 
 10 
 
 The bark of certain trees, notably the hemlock, and the oaks among 
 our native species, contain the chemical compounds known as tannic acids, 
 which serve for the manufacture of leather. 
 
 Thus 1,500,000 cords of tan bark, worth about $10,000,000, which are 
 used annually in the U. S., entailed formerly a sacrifice of nearly 1,000 feet 
 of lumber per cord of bark ; of this now probably the larger part is saved. 
 
 The naval store industry, concerned in extracting from the living 
 trees of certain kinds of pine, especially the Southern long leaf pine, and 
 from other species, the resinous contents, and by distillation obtaining tur- 
 pentine, resin of various kinds, and tar, is indebted to the forest to the 
 extent of about $20,000,000 per year in the United States. 
 
 A similar industry is the tapping of the maple for sugar, which is pe- 
 culiar to the United States and Canada, producing with over 50,000,000 
 pounds of sugar, and 3,000,000 gallons of syrup, values to the extent of 
 $6,000,000 annually. 
 
 Finally, by distillation of the wood itself and condensing of the gas- 
 eous products, considerable amounts of wood alcohol, wood vinegar, and 
 acetates, creosote, and other tar oils useful in the arts, are derived, adding 
 another $3,000,000 or more to the annual revenue furnished by the forest 
 resource in the United States. 
 
 While the value of the raw forest products consumed every year in 
 the United States at places of consumption, roughly shaped for further 
 use, may be placed at $600,000,000 ! this is enhanced by their further 
 manufacture to over $1,200,000,000, thus making the result of the forest 
 industries second only to those of agriculture, the value of whose products 
 reached in the census year (18UO) nearly $2,500,000,000 while the total 
 production of metals which could in any way replace wood gold and sil- 
 ver and iron included reached only $270,000,000, and the entire mining 
 industry (quarries and every kind of mineral or earthy product included) 
 but little over $600,000,000. 
 
 As civilization advances so does the use of wood increase, and during 
 the last 40 years this increase has been most remarkable. Great Britain, 
 having hardly any wood lands of her own, stands first as an importer of 
 wood, importing last year wood to the value of $125,000,000 (20 per cent 
 more than her pig iron product). During the last 40 years the amount of 
 wood used in that country has been increased 200 per cent, while her popu- 
 lation only increased 42 per cent. France in the last 70 years, with an in- 
 crease of population of 20 per cent., has increased her consumption of wood 
 700 per cent. Germany is, next to Great Britain, the greatest importer of 
 wood, increasing its imports by 400 per cent, in the last 40 years, or 3^ 
 per cent, per annum. These remarkable increases are doubtless due in 
 part to increased manufactures of wood for exportation, but the all-around 
 increase is consequent upon the demands of advancing civilization.
 
 11 
 
 Similar increases in per capita consumption can be shown from the 
 census statistics in the U. S., which is probably the largest wood consumer 
 in the world, with 350 cubic feet per capita consumption, while in Germany 
 the consumption is only 43, and in Great Britain about 15 cubic feet. 
 
 The statistics of Canada show that the value of the forest products in 
 1891 was $80,000,000, of which $56,000,000 was used at home while she 
 exported lumber and other products to the value of $24,000,000. This was 
 an export of $15.60 per capita and represented a consumption of 250 cubic 
 feet per capita as compared with Great Britain's 15 cubic feet ; moreover, 
 the wood consumption in Canada is increasing very rapidly. Ontario 
 alone derived a revenue of $1,276,000 from timber licenses and dues in 
 1901, showing that this province can well afford to establish schools of 
 forestry as a business proposition. , 
 
 Statistics show that Canada has 800,000,000 acres of wood land, but 
 of this vast acreage probably not fifty per cent, may be considered as forest 
 land fit for timber production, the rest perhaps able to satisfy domestic and 
 pulpwood demands, but not to be considered in connection with the timber 
 requirements, which at the present rate of consumption amounts to 5,000- 
 000,000 feet per annum ; only under proper supervision will this area of less 
 than 400 million acres, much of it badly damaged by fire, continue to sup- 
 ply growing demands for a long time. With the decrease of supplies in 
 other countries and the increase of their needs for imported wood pro- 
 ducts, the value of Canada's remaining forest wealth, will appreciate 
 and readily repay the care bestowed on it. 
 
 To sum up : Consumption of wood is so enormously and constantly 
 increasing, that, in spite of substitutes, wood will remain a necessity. 
 
 Natural supplies, however abundant, must give out unless we can and 
 do reproduce them. 
 
 Nature's reproduction is uneconomic in character, space and time; 
 and hence man's action becomes necessary, giving a more rational treat- 
 ment to forests everywhere. 
 
 Forestry becomes the necessity of every country, and especially for 
 those countries that have large supplies and are bound to be great timber 
 producers in the future. 
 
 The natural forest resource as we find it, consists of an accumulated 
 wood capital lying idle and awaiting the hand of a rational manager to do 
 its duty as a producer of a continuous highest revenue. 
 
 Such management, however, it does not receive in the crude exploit- 
 ations to which it is subjected in all newly developed and developing coun- 
 tries ; on the contrary, the wasteful use of the soil is only intensified ; for 
 these exploitations, the operations of the lumberman, consist in a mere re- 
 moval of the valuable portions of the growth, a cashing of the accumulated 
 wood capital, without the slightest reference to future revenues which 
 might be derived from it in the shape of wood growth. In fact, he does
 
 12 
 
 not recognize or consider that the forest is not merely a mine, but a repro- 
 ducible resource a living, growing crop, the product of the soil and cli- 
 mate, which can be reproduced ad libitum in even superior quantity and 
 quality to what nature alone and unaided has done. 
 
 His methods of removing the standing timber are not only wasteful, 
 but they decrease the capacity of the land for producing valuable timber. 
 
 By culling out the most valuable kinds, leaving undesirable kinds and 
 poor trees to shade the young growth that may have developed, he prevents 
 the reproduction of a valuable crop, and hence such culled areas, 
 while they still appear as forested, have often lost their entire value as pro- 
 ducers of useful material; the growth on the land being an encumbrance 
 'rather, to be got rid of first, before profitable use of the soil, either for 
 agricultural crops or for useful wood crops, can take place. 
 
 The rational way in treating the resource of virgin woods, from na- 
 tional economic if not from private pocket interest would be as far as pos- 
 sible to prepare first for a desirable reproduction by cutting out the poor 
 kinds and the useless brush, then logging out first only the largest trees of 
 the better kinds with proper precaution against injury to younger growth, 
 and against fires, then gradually, as younger trees grow on, the older ones 
 may be harvested and as much as possible in such a manner'that the young 
 after-growth is given room and light. 
 
 Thus, by mere care in utilizing the resource, not only can all the pro- 
 duct be harvested, but a new crop, increased in quantity, can be secured. 
 From such simple care we come to the finest methods of forestry, for 
 these are only different in the degree of care, hardly in the kind. 
 
 By these methods man makes the forest resource produce easily the 
 treble and quadruple of what it does when left alone ; so that merely by the 
 judicious use the capacity of useful production grows. 
 
 How much intensive management can increase the yield of the re- 
 source may be judged from the experiences of German forest administra- 
 tion. Here the forest resources are nearly if not entirely brought under 
 rational management, and are treated as a crop, constantly furnishing har- 
 vests, and being reproduced without diminishing the wood capital. 
 
 Thus, the rather more extensively managed Prussian government for- 
 ests, which with an area of 6,750,000 acres are perhaps also stocked on 
 poorer soils or are less favorably situated, produced as an average for a 
 series of years 42 cubic feet of timber wood (over 3 inches diameter) per 
 acre, those of Bavaria 55, those of Baden 59, of Wurtemberg 67, while the 
 most intensively managed state forests of Saxony, of only 430,000 acres 
 extent, produced 90 cubic feet of wood per acre per year, of which 68 cubic 
 feet was timber wood, the highest production for such a large area. 
 
 A further illustration of the increase in yield which comes with proper 
 management of this resource is furnished by the Prussian state forest ad- 
 ministration : while during the years from 1829 to 1867 the cut was in-
 
 creased from 28 to 37 cubic feet per acre, and to 46.7 cubic feet in 1880, 
 nearly double what it was in 1829, yet the proportion of old timber over 80 
 years,or stock of merchantible timber on hand, increased during the last 20 
 years of the period from 23 per cent, to 27 per cent., showing that the cut 
 remained below the production. In the most intensively managed state 
 forests of Saxony, the cut has been doubled in the last fifty years, and yet 
 the stock of wood capital standing has increased over 16 per cent. ; while in 
 1845, of the cut per acre of 56 cubic feet, 11 per cent, was saw timber; in 
 1893, of the 90 cubic feet cut, 54 per cent, was timber fit for the mill. 
 The gross revenue increased during that time 234 per cent., and the net 
 revenue over 80 per cent. A financial calculation shows that the state's 
 property has not only paid 3 per cent, continuously in revenue, but has ap- 
 preciated in value 24 per cent, by mere accumulation of material. 
 
 According to a conservative calculation based upon these experiences, 
 the forest resource of Germany represents, in round numbers, a capital 
 value of $180 per acre ($25 for the soil and $155 for the stock of wood) 
 paying a constant revenue of 3 per cent, on such capitalization ; or since 
 there are ^omewhat over 35,000,000 acres of forest, their capital value is 
 equal to $6,340,000,000, producing a continuous annual income of $190,- 
 000,000. The state properties are, moreover, constantly improving, and 
 the revenue constantly increasing. 
 
 While, to the casual reader, this showing may hardly appear as a very 
 profitable business, we must not forget that the result is obtained for the 
 most part from soils which would otherwise be unproductive. 
 
 It is apparent that we are bound to exhaust our stores in less time than 
 they can be replaced, that we are not living on interest, but are rapidly at- 
 tacking our wood capital a process fully in keeping with the development 
 of any new country, but also one against which reaction must set in in time, 
 if serious consequences are to be avoided. 
 
 Such reaction may be secured first through a more economical use of 
 the timber resources, for the per capita consumption in Canada falls hard- 
 ly short of 300 cubic feet, nearly eight times that of Germany, and twenty 
 times that of England, and hence a large margin is left for such economies. 
 
 Finally, however, forest management, as practiced in other countries, 
 will become an unavoidable necessity to secure the continued production 
 of needed wood supplies. 
 
 There is one factor of national importance resulting from the indus- 
 tries concerned in the conversion of our virgin forests, which .does not at 
 all, or not to the same extent, attach to them in other countries, and which, 
 in the end, is of more moment than estimates of stumpage-or land values 
 or values of products can express. Not only does the lumberman with the 
 systematic development of his business, which has enabled him to supply a 
 superior article as cheaply as the inferior one is sold in Europe, give rise 
 to many manufactories and industries, and render possible the development
 
 14 
 
 of distant agricultural regions, which in turn renders profitable the build- 
 ing of railroads and the employment of labor, but he has been the pioneer 
 in bringing the wilderness itself within reach of civilized influences; and 
 while this has often been done at an unnecessarily extravagant sacrifice of 
 much of our natural forest resources, the opening up of these back woods 
 must nevertheless be considered as a potent influence for good, resulting 
 from his business. 
 
 Per aspcra ad astra, through rough work to civilization, is the history 
 of the settling of the backwoods, which the logger has accomplished. 
 
 NORTH HASTINGS. 
 
 Photo by Houghton W. Wilson. 
 
 Such settlement is necessary before forest management can be profit- 
 ably applied to the remnants of woodlands ; and while we may regret the 
 wastefulness with which this settlement has been made, we must consider 
 it as a necessary step toward an extension of civilized conditions.
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 WHAT IS FORESTRY? 
 
 DEFINITIONS AND PRIMARY CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 At this time, when the necessity of preserving the forest wealth of the 
 world arises to prominence, general interest in Forestry should be aroused. 
 Canada, on account of climatic conditions and the extent of non-agricul- 
 tural land, is, and will continue to be, one of the great forest countries of 
 the world, and rational management should succeed the mere exploitation 
 hitherto practiced in her forests. 
 
 The word "Forestry" in its present sense is of recent usage, but in its 
 origin a Latinized Teutonic word, originally meaning a portion of the land 
 of a tribe held by the king or first man the "Furst." From such use come 
 the old definitions of the forest as a large, uncultivated tract of country, 
 wooded in places, under certain laws a legal term. The English kings 
 thus reserved the right to hunt on stretches of country, over which forest- 
 laws prevailed, and in charge of "Foresters," who were more properly 
 the game-keepers of the king and his nobles. As understood now, we 
 may call "woodland" the natural condition, land covered with woody 
 growth, while in the term "forest" we add economic considerations, namely 
 a woodland under man's care for forest purposes and exhibiting forest 
 conditions. 
 
 As they supply different purposes, forests may be classified ais Luxury 
 Forests, for Park Purposes, reserved for game protection, Protection For- 
 ests, for the protection of mountain slopes and watersheds from erosion, 
 and Supply Forests, which furnish material for the lumberman. This 
 last forest purpose is the most important and direct one, while the second 
 function is of moment only in certain locations, and all three can be sub- 
 served simultaneously. 
 
 In the pioneer days of a country there is first a rapid destruction of 
 forests to clear the land, but, when the natural timber supply has diminish- 
 ed beyond a certain point, Forestry the rational treatment of the forests 
 as timber producers, becomes necessary, under which they are used and cul- 
 tivated continuously for a wood crop as agricultural land is for food-crops. 
 The technical side of forestry is based on natural science, the economic 
 side on mathematics and on political economy. The technical art of forest 
 crop production, silviculture, calls for knowledge of botany and especially 
 dendrology, or the physiology and biology of trees, as well as a knowledge 
 of soil physics and chemistry to make the art an improvement on nature's 
 methods producing the best form and largest quantity of wood in the
 
 shortest time possible. But as the forester, like the lumberman, harvests 
 his crop, considerable engineering knowledge must be added to business 
 knowledge to carry on the business of forestry. While, then, forestry is to 
 the statesman a policy of national interest, to the student a science, to the 
 forest producer an art, it is in the end a business, to make revenue from the 
 use of the soil through timber production. In Europe forestry has long 
 been practiced, forest laws existing as early as the sixteenth century, but 
 our modern forestry has been practiced in Germany over 150 years. In 
 America forestry is a new word and a new art, which has come to the front 
 as the shortage of the natural timber resource made it apparent as a neces- 
 sity. In the United States the government has recognized this necessity 
 for forestry, has instituted a Bureau of Forestry with annual appropriations 
 reaching now the sum of $185,000 merely for investigation, and has set 
 aside 60 million acres of forest reservations. Several of the States have 
 adopted the same policy, notably the State of New York, which has re- 
 served over one million acres under a forest commission and has also insti- 
 tuted the N. Y. State College of Forestry at Cornell University. Several 
 other forestry schools have followed. 
 
 While in the United States large tracts of the timber land are held bv 
 private individuals and corporations, in Canada the Provincial Governments 
 have displayed great foresight in retaining control of these lands, and the 
 conditions are excellent for the organization of a system of forestry.
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 HOW TREES GROW. 
 
 The technical part of the art of forestry is called silviculture the art 
 that produces the wood-crop for the management of the forester. For an 
 understanding of the treatment of trees en masse, the forester needs a 
 knowledge of dendrology, the knowledge of trees in all details, and espec- 
 ially their life history, individual and in association. Often wrongly de- 
 fined in terms of size, the tree is potentially existing already in seed and 
 seedling it is a woody plant, the seed of which is capable of producing a 
 single stem from the ground with a definite crown. 
 
 Trees, growing from seed, are built up from cell growth, division and 
 multiplication like other living organisms, and they have similar require- 
 ments. Unlike other plants, they have longer life and attain greater 
 height, to lift their foliage to the light. Their remarkable height is built 
 up, storey by storey, by shoots, wh ich push out from buds and elongate 
 from the tips of stem and branch. The age of the tree may thus be told, at 
 least in young specimens, by counting the annual shoots, which are marked 
 off from each other by a swelling of the stem. 
 
 Buds are developed at the end of the year's growth, the terminal bud 
 or one near the end of the shoot annually continuing the height growth. 
 Each class of tree has a different habit of bud development, and trees can 
 be identified by their buds alone. The Conifers, with fewer lateral buds, 
 than the deciduous trees, persistently develop the main stem at the expense 
 of the branches, the shoot from the single terminal bud making rapid 
 height growth. If the terminal bud of a pine be destroyed, the side buds 
 usually carry on the growth and cause forking of the stem. Among hard 
 woods the majority of the buds do not develop, but are either lost or 
 remain dormant, the shape of the tree being dependent upon this bud 
 development, so that the dense crown of the Beech from the development 
 of many buds has a different appearance from the open crown of an Oak. 
 The dormant buds remain undeveloped, continually pushed out beyond the 
 wood of the surface each year, ready in case of necessity or accident finally 
 to develop into shoots. 
 
 As the new buds are formed at the ends of the shoots each year, the 
 tree might grow on forever, if each species did not grow within certain 
 definite height limits, which depend on conditions of soil, climate and spe- 
 cies. The moisture from the soil, the tree must raise to its foliage against 
 gravity, and the height to which the water can be lifted is limited ; some 
 species offering more friction to the water current, cannot grow as high as 
 others.
 
 DENSE BEECH CROWN. 
 
 OPEN OAK CROWN.
 
 19 
 
 Light is an important factor in tree growth, and the form of the tree 
 varies with the light supply. In the forest the trees grow tall, with long, 
 clear trunks and few branches, while in the open the tree is short and 
 branchy with a large crown. The belief that the growth of the tree push- 
 es its branches higher up on its trunk is erroneous ; the bareness of the for- 
 est tree is caused by the loss of the lower branches for want of light. The 
 open-ground tree retains its branches lower on the trunk, and consequently 
 does not produce as good lumber, the limbs, that all start from the centre 
 of the tree, each year's wood growth burying their beginning deeper and 
 deeper, if not killed and shed early, produce knots, which injure the 
 strength and value of the sawn lumber. In dense forests the lack of light 
 causes the lower branches to die and fall and the trunk is left clear. In 
 forest planting, trees are set densely to shut out the light and kill the lower 
 branches, in order to produce later, clear, valuable lumber. 
 
 Trees grow not only in height, but also in. diameter, the growth taking 
 place in the soft cambium layer between bark and wood. Every spring 
 this layer of living cells begins to grow and divide, at first very rapidly 
 with the rapid height-growth, but gradually more slowly as summer ad- 
 vances. The first quickly-formed wood cells are thin-walled with large 
 openings, forming the pores seen in the spring wood of the oaks and ashes. 
 The later summer-formed cells are closely crowded and compressed, with 
 thick walls and small openings, the wood appearing denser and darker 
 colored from this crowded condition of the cells. This succession of dif- 
 ferent spring and summer wood zones allows the easy recognition and 
 counting of the annual layers or rings of wood, and this variation in the 
 ring structure serves to identify various species of trees, and to indicate 
 the comparative strength of their wood. After cutting a tree, therefore, 
 its age can be found by counting the annual rings on the stumps, and from 
 the record preserved in these rings the history of its growth can be read. 
 
 The annual ring is formed in all countries where there is a temporary 
 cessation of growth, caused by distinct summer and winter seasons. Ex- 
 ceptionally trees fail to deposit wood over the whole trunk on account of 
 loss of foliage, etc., and no ring is formed, or, where the growth has been 
 disturbed during the season, a second ring may form, which can mostly be 
 readily distinguished from the true rings. 
 
 To the forest manager the study of ring growth is of great importance, 
 because from the rings of growth the progress of the crop may be seen 
 the amount of wood formed, and the time when it is most profitable to har- 
 vest calculated. Since also the proportion of spring and summer wood 
 largely determines the quality of the timber, the ring growth furnishes an 
 index for regulating the quality of the crop, since, by management of spe- 
 cies, and adapting them to soils, the proportion of the spring and summer 
 wood may be influenced. It is a mistake to consider that the lumber of the 
 more rapidly grown trees of any species is weaker, for it is apparent that
 
 21' 
 
 the dense, thick-walled summer wood cells make stronger wood than the 
 thin-walled spring cells, and in a year of rapid growth the summer wood 
 formed in some species exceeds in amount that formed in years of slower 
 growth. 
 
 The food necessary for a tree to increase its solid substance is obtain- 
 ed from the soil and from the air. Most of this food substance is 
 formed in the green parts of the plant the foliage, in the presence of 
 light and air by the union of water with the carbon derived from the car- 
 bonic acid of the air. From the soil, water is constantly being lifted by the 
 tree up into its foliage ; from which a part passes off into the air as vapor, 
 the amount of transpiration varying with the climatic conditions, water 
 supply, season and species. While in a vigorously-growing tree there is 
 from 40 to 65 per cent of water, the amount given off from its leaves in a 
 season is many times greater than that retained, but trees require from one- 
 half to one-quarter of the water which agricultural crops need. 
 
 Mineral substances are taken up only in very small amounts, and 
 mostly of the commoner kinds, such as lime, potash, magnesium and nitro- 
 gen. Hence, wood crops do not exhaust the soil of its minerals, and even 
 improve its fertility, as the greater part of the minerals are returned to the 
 soil in more soluble form by the annual fall of the leaves and the small 
 brush, in which the minerals are most abundant, and which decompose and 
 form a rich humus layer on the surface of the soil. 
 
 As the soil moisture is the greatest requisite for tree growth, its con- 
 servation and distribution is most important. No tree grows to best advan- 
 tage in very wet or dry soil, although some species endure and appear 
 thrifty in such unfavorable situations. The soil most suited for all trees is 
 a moderately but evenly moist soil, porous and well drained, but capable of 
 conducting water up within reach of the roots of plants. 
 
 For the conservation of the soil moisture, the forest grower cannot re- 
 ly on the methods of the agriculturist, which are usually impracticable and 
 too expensive. He can only employ such methods as shading and mulch- 
 ing the soil shading by close planting, and by maintaining the crown 
 cover dense through the life of the crop to protect the soil from sun and 
 wind ; mulching, by the annual fall of twigs and leaves, which remain and 
 decay, forming a rich mold, increasing the absorption and retentiveness of 
 the soil, and retarding the evaporation of moisture and the run-off from the 
 surface. 
 
 While with a moderate and even supply of moisture all trees thrive 
 best, some like the Conifers, and especially the Pines, endure drier soils, 
 and others like the Bald Cypress, excessive moisture. This adaptation, how- 
 ever, is modified in different regions by drier or more humid climate.
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF A FOREST GROWTH. 
 
 Last night we took a glimpse into that part of dendrology the study 
 of trees which concerns itself with the development of the single individ- 
 ual. To-night we will look into the communal life the sociology, as it 
 were, of trees, as exhibited in forest growth. 
 
 For, in order to practice forestry, there is, first of all, need to under- 
 stand the natural history of the forest. How does nature produce her for- 
 ests ? What are the laws, what is the progress in the evolution of a forest 
 growth ? These questions i shall endeavor to answer to-night. 
 
 The earth may be said to be a potential forest. A cover of tree growth 
 more or less dense is, or has been, the natural condition of at least the lar- 
 ger portion of the habitable earth, and, of the entire land surface, not less 
 than 60 per cent, may be classed as actual or potential woodland; 7 per 
 cent prairie, and 33 per cent, plains or barrens. (In North America the 
 proportion is about 45-5-50; in Asia, 45-3-52; in Europe, 84-10-6). 
 
 In the struggle for existence and for occupancy of the soil between the 
 different forms of vegetation, tree growth has an advantage in its perennial 
 nature and in its elevation in height above its competitors for light, the 
 most essential element of life for most plants. These characteristics, to- 
 gether with its remarkable recuperative power, assure to the arborescent 
 flora final victory over its competitors except where climatic and soil con- 
 ditions are not adapted to it. 
 
 The entire absence of the tree growth from some localities, such as the 
 northern tundras, the high peaks above timberline, and the arid plains, is 
 due to temperature, moisture and soil conditions, either one or the other, or 
 the unfavorable combination of them. On the high peaks, the two charac- 
 teristics, of perennial life and persistent height growth, become unfavor- 
 able, since the extreme winter temperatures above the snow cover, drough- 
 ty winter storms, and frosts every month in the year can be endured only by 
 those plants which have a rapid cycle of development, or are sheltered near 
 the ground by the snow cover. The wet soil on the tundras, frozen for 
 most portions of the year, or the thin soil on the Alpine peaks, add to the 
 difficulties for deep-rooting species in their contest with the lower vegeta- 
 tion. Again, in the interior of continents and other localities unfavorably 
 situated with reference to the great sources of moisture and moisture-bear- 
 ing currents, deficiency of water, scant rain-fall or low relative humidity, 
 or both, and excess of evaporation, are inimical to tree growth, occasioning 
 plains, which although not always and by necessity treeless, do not permit 
 any forests to establish themselves unaided.
 
 Occasionally, soil conditions, especially with reference to drainage, 
 may be more favorable to the graminaceous vegetation, at least for a time ; 
 giving rise to pampas, prairies and savannahs ; or else all the unfavorable 
 conditions combine to give rise to deserts. 
 
 In addition, there are hostile agencies in the animal world, which pre- 
 vent the progress of forest growth, and tend to preserve the prairies ; lo- 
 custs, rodents, ruminants, like the buffalo, antelope and the horse, impede 
 the growth and spread of the trees, and especially where compact soil and 
 deficient moisture conditions are leagued with these animals, the change 
 from prairie to forest is prevented, at least for a time. 
 
 Woodlands are the most unfavorable form of vegetation for the life 
 of ruminants, and, therefore, for the support of the largest number of men." 
 For food production, for agricultural pursuits, man must subdue and re- 
 move tree growth. Hence, forest devastation, forest destruction, is the 
 beginning of civilization in a forested country, its necessary requisite, and 
 the persistency with which in forest regions the forest tries to re-establish 
 itself calls for continued effort to protect pasture and field against its re- 
 establishment. 
 
 So impressed was Dr. Asa Gray with the persistency of individual tree 
 life that he questioned whether a tree need ever die; "For the 
 tree (unlike the animal) is gradually developed by the successive 
 addition of new parts. It annually renews not only its buds 
 and leaves, but its wood and its roots; everything, indeed, that 
 is concerned in its life and growth. Thus, like the fabled 
 Aeson, being restored from the decrepitude of age to the bloom of youth 
 the most recent branchlets being placed by means of the latest layer of 
 wood in favorable communication with the newly formed roots, and these 
 extending at a corresponding rate into fresh soil why has not the tree all 
 the conditions of existence in the thousandth that it possessed in the hun- 
 dredth or the tenth year of its age ? 
 
 The old central part of the trunk may, indeed, decay, but this is of lit- 
 tle moment, so long as new layers are regularly formed at the circumfer- 
 ence. The tree survives, and it is difficult to show that it is liable to death 
 from old age in any proper sense of the term." 
 
 However this may be, we know trees succumb to external causes, in- 
 sects, fungi, fire, windstorms, etc. Nevertheless, they are perennial enough 
 to outlive aught else, "to be the oldest inhabitants of the globe, to be more 
 ancient than any human monument, exhibiting in some of its survivors a 
 living antiquity, compared with which the mouldering relics of the earliest 
 Egyptian civilization, the pyramids themselves, are but structures of yes- 
 terday." The dragon-trees, socalled, found on the island of Teneriffe, 
 off the African coast, are believed to be many thousand years old. The 
 largest is only 15 feet in diameter and 75 feet high. The sequoias or Big 
 Trees are more rapid growers and attain more than double these dimen-
 
 24 
 
 sions in 3,000 to 4,000 years, which may be the highest age of living ones. 
 Their long life is undoubtedly due to the fact that they are not liable to at- 
 tacks by insects, fungus, and hardly by fire. , 
 
 While this persistence of life is one of the attributes which in the bat- 
 tle for life must count as of immeasurable advantage, the other characteris- 
 tic of arboreal development, its elevation in height above every living thing, 
 is no less an advantage over all competitiors for light, which is the source 
 of all life ; and in this competition, size must ultimately triumph. 
 
 Endowed with these weapons of defensive and offensive warfare, for- 
 est growth has endeavored, and no doubt to a degree succeeded through all 
 geologic ages, during which the earth supported life, in gaining possession 
 of the earth's surface. 
 
 As terra firma increased, emerging in islands above the ocean, so in- 
 creased the area of the forest, changing in composition, to be sure, with the 
 change of physical and climatic conditions. 
 
 As early as the Devonian age, when but a small part of our continent 
 was formed, the mud flats and sand reefs, ever increasing by new accumu- 
 lations under the action of the waves and currents of the ocean, were 
 changed from a bare and lifeless world above tide-level to one of forest- 
 clad hills and dales with quaint forms, like the tree rushes and the proto- 
 types of our pines, the Dadoxylon. 
 
 The same class of flowerless plants, known as vascular cryptogams, 
 with colossal tree ferns and the Sigillarias added, became more numerous 
 and luxuriant in the Carboniferous age. 
 
 This vegetation probably spread over all the dry land, while other 
 forms made the dense jungle in the marshy places and lakes with floating 
 islands; the thick deposits of vegetable remains from these forests were 
 finally, in the course of geologic revolutions, turned into the great coal 
 fields. 
 
 During these geologic revolutions some of the floral types vanished al- 
 together, and new ones originated, so that, at the end of Mesozoic times, a 
 considerable change in the landscape is noticeable. In addition to conifer- 
 ous trees, the palms appeared and the first of Dicotyledons, such as Oaks, 
 Dogwood, Beech, Poplar, Willow, Sassafras and Tulip tree. Species in- 
 creased in numbers, adapted to all sorts of conditions, the forest in most 
 varied form and luxuriance climbed up the mountain sides to the very 
 crests, and covered the land to the very poles with a flora of tropical and 
 semi-tropical species in profusion, and large mammals roamed over the 
 open spaces. 
 
 Then came the levelling processes and other changes of post- Tertiary 
 or Quaternary times, the glaciation of mountains and nothern latitudes, 
 with the consequent changes of climate, which brought about correspond- 
 ing changes in the ranks of the forest, killing out many species around the
 
 25 
 
 north pole, the hardier races alone surviving ; and these were driven south- 
 ward in a veritable rout by the icy blasts. 
 
 When these boreal times subsided in a degree, the advance of the forest 
 was as sure as before, but the battle order was somewhat changed to suit 
 the new conditions of soil and climate. Only the hardier tribes could re- 
 gain the northernmost posts, and of those who followed, many found their 
 former places of occupancy changed by fluvial and lacustrine formations 
 and by the drifts borne and deposited by icy sheets, while some, by their 
 constitution, were entirely unfitted from engaging in a northern campaign, 
 or found insurmountable barriers in the refrigerated east-west elevations, 
 as in Europe and Western Asia. 
 
 PETRIFIED TREE 
 
 In addition, there had come new troubles from volcanic eruptions, 
 which would again and again wrest the reconquered ground from- the per- 
 sistent advance guards of the arboreal army, annihilating them again and 
 again. 
 
 Finally, when the more settled geologic and climatic conditions of the 
 present era arrived, and the sun arose over the world, ready for human
 
 habitation, man found what we are pleased to call the virgin forest a pro- 
 duct of long-continued evolutionary changes occupying most, if not all. 
 the dry land, and ever intent upon extending its realm. 
 
 I may not leave this prehistoric story of the battle of the forest with- 
 out giving some historic evidences of its truth. Paleobotanists have un- 
 earthed the remnants of the circtimpolar flora which give evidence that it 
 resembled that of the present tropic and semi-tropic countries ; they have 
 also shown that Sequoias, Magnolias, Liquidambars and Hickories existed 
 in Europe and on our continent in regions where they are now extinct. We 
 have also evidences of the repeated successes and reverses of the forest in 
 its attempt to establsh itself through long geologic transformations. 
 
 One of the most interesting evidences of these vicissitudes in the 
 struggles of the forest to establish itself is presented in a section of Ame- 
 thyst Mountain in the Yellowstone Park, which exhibits the remains of 15 
 forest growths, one above the other, buried in the lava. Again and again 
 subduing the inhospitable excoriations, again and again the forest had to 
 yield to superior force. The face of the mountain includes over 2,000 feet 
 of strata resting upon granite. The trees, or rather parts of them, stand 
 upright and lie prostrate in good preservation, 40 to 50 feet in length, and 
 not a few as much as 5 and G feet in diameter. ( Note the ancient arid 
 modern vegetation in company.) The largest, uncovered by the action of 
 water and soil movement, rising 12 feet above the enclosing strata, is 10 
 feet in diameter, and belongs to the Sequoia tribe. 
 
 Among these petrified witnesses of former forest glory, Magnolias. 
 Oaks, Tulip trees, Sassafras, Linden, Ash, have been identified, accom- 
 panying the Sequoias, while now only the hardiest growth of pines and 
 spruces find a congenial climate here. 
 
 Reversals of this kind are taking place even in our own time, before 
 our very eyes. In Alaska, and elsewhere, glaciers carry large masses of 
 soil and rock, depositing it in moraines at lower levels. On these mor- 
 aines vegetation soon establishes itself, and finally the forest grows to the 
 very edge, nay, upon the very back of the mighty icesheet. But as the ice 
 river ebbs and flows, recedes and pushes forward, the existence of the for- 
 est cover is precarious and of temporary duration sooner or later it will 
 be pushed over by the moving ice and buried by the moraine material. 
 Again receding, the glacier river carrying off the melted ice in a rapid 
 stream, this stream cutting through the moraine, may uncover the buried 
 forest, as is the case near the celebrated Muir glacier, exhibiting to us a bit 
 of the earth's history and of the methods of making it, and the forces at 
 work in past eras. 
 
 Just as the forest formed and spread thus during the course of ages. 
 so does it form and spread to-day, unless man, driven by tine increasing 
 needs of existence, checks its progress and reduces its area by the cultiva- 
 tion of the soil. This natural extension of the forest-cover takes place
 
 27 
 
 readily wherever soil and climate are favorable, but it is accomplished just 
 as surely, though infinitely more slowly, in unfavorable situations. On the 
 naked rock, the coarse detritus and gravel beds, on the purely siliceous 
 sand deposits of rivers and oceans, or in the hot, dry plains, the preliminarv 
 pioneer work of the lower vegetation is required. Algae, lichens, mosses, 
 grasses, herbs and shrubs must precede, to cultivate the naked rock, to mel- 
 low the rough gravel beds, to make the soil, to increase the soil moisture bv 
 shading the ground and gradually render it fit for the abode of the forest 
 monarch. The army of soil makers and soil breakers, the pioneers, as it 
 were, of the forest, are a hardy race, making less demand for their support 
 
 MUIK GLACIER FOREST. 
 
 than those who are to follow. They come from different tribes, according 
 to the climatic conditions in which they have to combat. As soon as they 
 have established themselves, they begin their cultivatory activity, which 
 consists in withdrawing from the rock or soil and from the air the nutri- 
 tive elements, returning them to the soil when they die and decay in a form 
 much more suitable for the support of the higher plants. Not only are 
 thus, by the repeated growth and decay of these pioneers, the nutritive ele- 
 ments of the soil improved and augmented, but also the physical properties ; 
 the soil is deepened and becomes mellow and its capacity" for moisture in- 
 creases. The waters, charged with carbonic acid derived from the decay 
 of the vegetable humus, hasten the decomposition of the underlying rock.
 
 and thus also the fertile soil layers increase, until the more fastidious plants 
 can subsist. The humblest workers, algae, lichens, cacti and mosses, are 
 followed by sedges, dry grasses, herbs and shrubs, or, in the drier and 
 warmer climates, by agaves and yuccas ; then come ferns and other repre- 
 sentatives of the lower vegetation, succulent grasses and herbs gradually 
 covering the soil with a meadow or prairie, the shrubs become more numer- 
 ous, by degrees closing up, shading the ground and overshadowing the 
 grasses and finally the time is ripe for the arborescent flora. Nor does then 
 the forest appear at once in its fullness and variety of form. Single trees, 
 
 FERNS, SCELERAT LAKE, ALGONQUIN PARK. 
 
 Photo by Houghton W. Wilson. 
 
 stragglers or skirmishers in small numbers, and shrub-like, and stunted 
 forms first arrive, gradually increasing in number and improving in form. 
 These, by their shade and by the fall and decay of their foliage and litter, 
 improve the soil for their betters to follow. 
 
 The Aspen is one of these fore-runners, which, thanks to its prolific 
 production of light, feathery seed, readily wafted by the winds over hun- 
 dreds of miles, readily germinating and rapidly growing under exposure to 
 full sunlight, even now in the Adirondacks, the Rocky Mountains and else- 
 where, quickly takes possession of the areas on which man has ruthlessly 
 destroyed all vegetation by fire. This humble, ubiquitous, but otherwise
 
 almost useless tree, is nature's restorative, covering the sores and scalds of 
 the burnt mountain side. Though short-lived, with its bright summer fol- 
 iage turning into brilliant autumn hues, it gives grateful shade and pre- 
 serves from the thirsty sun and wind some moisture for the better kinds to 
 thrive and take its place, when it has fulfilled its mission. 
 
 In other regions, as on the prairies of Iowa and Illinois, hazel bushes, 
 or, in the mountains of Pennsylvania and the Alleghanies in general, eri- 
 caceous shrubs, like the Laurels and Rhododendrons, or Hawthorn, Vi- 
 
 ASPEN LAKE, UTAH. 
 
 burnum and Wild Cherry are the first comers, while along the water 
 courses Alders and Willows crowd even the water into narrower channels, 
 catching the soil which is washed from the hillsides and increasing the land 
 area. 
 
 One of the most interesting soil makers, wresting new territory from 
 the ocean itself, is the Mangrove along the coast of Florida. Not only does 
 it reach out with its aerial roots, entangling in their meshes whatever litter 
 may float about, and thus gradually building up the shore, but it pitches 
 even its young brood into the advance of the battle, to wrestle with the 
 waves and gain a foothold as best it may. 
 
 Not less interesting in this respect is that denizen of the southern 
 swamp, the Bald Cypress, with its curious root excrescenses known as
 
 30 
 
 Cypress Knees, which are most helpful in expediting change of water into 
 land sufficiently dry to be capable of supporting the more fastidious in re- 
 gard to moisture conditions. 
 
 Here we should note the remarkable adaptation to divers conditions of 
 some of the tree species. Trees of the swamp, or at least many of them, 
 seem to indicate their independence of moisture conditions by the range of 
 climate and soil in which they are found. In fact, they grow in the swamp, 
 not because it is their most suitable locality, but because they are the ones 
 that can do so, to the exclusion of other competitors. The Bald Cypress, 
 in Lake Drummond itself, will grow in the dry soil and droughty atmos- 
 phere of Texas and Mexico; the Oaks, which associate with it in the 
 
 THE SKIRMISH LINE OF THE FOREST, ARIZONA. 
 
 swamp, will occupy almost any soil or site; the Red or Sweet Gum or 
 Liquidambar, which has lately become an important lumber producer, is 
 found in similar ranges of habitat; the same Juniper or Red Cedar 
 which in the swamps of Florida is a large tree and makes the soft material 
 for our pencils, covers also the driest ridges of the Rockies and Interior 
 Basin west of the Rocky Mountains, with a gnarly growth and hard tex- 
 ture, supplying the most lasting poles and posts. Thanks to the taste of 
 the birds for its berries, it finds ready dissemination over a wide field of
 
 distribution from New Brunswick to Florida and westward beyond the 
 Rockies, forming with the equally frugal Aspen and Cottonwoods the very 
 foremost advance guard of the forest. 
 
 The skirmish line of first comers, different ones in different climates, 
 frugal in their needs, prepare the conditions for the more fastidious birches, 
 elms, maples, ashes, oak, hickories, magnolias, spruces, firs, pines, and the 
 whole host of the varied forest flora. Which of these will occupy certain 
 territory depends in the first place on temperature conditions, and in the 
 second place on moisture conditions of air and soil and the various combin- 
 ations of these factors, which determine the geographical distribution of 
 species. 
 
 As far as temperature is concerned, there is no highest limit, provided 
 sufficient moisture be present. The forest of the tropics gives evidence of 
 this fact. On the other hand, low temperature extremes set a limit to tree 
 growth, as the northern tundras and the well-known timberline of high 
 mountains show, varying in altitude according to latitude, i.e., temperature 
 conditions. 
 
 As regards moisture, we have seen that many species live in the 
 swamps of the South, with their feet in water for months, and their heads 
 in a humid atmosphere all the year, while the plains and deserts, deficient 
 in soil moisture and humidity of the air, are treeless, or at least forestless. 
 Within these extremes we find species adapted to every clime and site. 
 
 As we go from the tropics to the pole, there is a change in the type of 
 the forest with each change of climate. From the evergreen, broad-leaved 
 forest of the tropics and subtropics, we may journey northward through 
 the deciduous leaved forests of the Carolinas and Pennsylvania, of oaks, 
 hickories, chestnut and tulip tree, or traveling along the Pacific Coast, 
 through a mixed forest of firs, spruces, pines, in most magnificent develop- 
 ment. Then (continuing our journey on the Atlantic side) we reach the 
 Northern forest, in which maple, beech and birch are predominant, with 
 spruce and white pine intermixed. Beyond, the number of species de- 
 creases, and generally coniferous growth predominates ; finally only eight 
 hardy species can take a stand against the frigid breath and icy hands of 
 Boreas. 
 
 Finally, we reach beyond the 62 of latitude in the interior of Canada 
 in Alaska, much further north the last outposts, short, tousled and 
 dwarfed, the Exquimaux of tree growth. Then the treeless tundra 
 is reached, where ice and snow abound all the year, the home of 
 winter. Here the soil is frozen for all but two months in the year, when 
 only a low vegetation of willow and birch and of flowers can subsist. Just 
 as we observe these changes in a long journey, we can trace them in a day's 
 ride, if we were to ascend some mountain in the tropic or sub-tropic regions 
 of Mexico or Jamaica. We begin our journey under the palms. Again 
 we pass through the evergreen tropic forest, composed of an endless var-
 
 32 
 
 iety of luxuriant species. As we ascend 2,000 or 3,000 feet the composi- 
 tion changes and we have come into the deciduous leaved forest, not unsim- 
 ilar in general aspect to that of our middle latitudes. We reach a sandy 
 plateau and find it occupied with pines and saw palmetto as underbrush, 
 just as we see it in the Carolinas. As we ascend to the 8,000 foot level, we 
 enter into the dominion of spruces and firs, and we may find thye open mea- 
 dows with a profusion of flowers. These openings, in Colorado and other 
 parts of the Rockies, are characteristically called parks. Here a depression 
 has filled up with water, forming a lovely mountain lake, with the spruces 
 and firs in spiral shapes surrounding the shores, just as you find them in 
 British Columbia at lower levels. Another 2,000 to 5,000 feet, and the 
 xorest opens as in our northward journey, the trees stand in groups, and the 
 grass and flowers occupy intervening spaces, competing for the ground. 
 As we pass out of this lovely park-like region, we come in sight of the peak 
 and of the skirmish line of the forest ; singly and in small groups the trees 
 try to brave the blast, hugging the ground and each other for protection, 
 tousled and dwarfed as their northern counterparts. Ice-laden with the 
 frozen humidity of these high attitudes for months the branches break. 
 This leads to misshapen form. Finally we have passed die limberiine, 
 where icy blasts and hard frosts occur every month in the year and hence 
 no persistent life can exist; and, if we are quick about descending, we may 
 again rest under the palms at night. 
 
 While, then, certain territory is assigned to the different tribes of tree 
 species, which are adapted to the climatic and soil conditions, struggling to 
 occupy the ground and to wrest it from the lower vegetation, there is by no 
 means an end to the evolutionary struggle, for, as soon as the soil is con- 
 quered, the battle begins between the conquerors themselves. Though not 
 fought with claws and teeth, the struggle is as fierce, as persistent and as 
 disastrous to the one or to the other species as in the animal world, each 
 trying to occupy the ground to the exclusion of the other. The weapons 
 and the warfare are offensive and defensive, but relative endurance of one 
 or more unfavorable conditions, adaptation to surroundings, insure mostly 
 the final victory and secure the survival of the fittest. The characteristics 
 of development from the-seed to old age influence the character of the dis- 
 tribution. 
 
 Prolific and frequent production of light-winged seed, carried by the 
 wind to all open spaces, germinating readily and growing rapidly, gives an 
 advantage to the one species. The heavy nut of the walnut or acorn must 
 wait for squirrels, mice, birds and water to extend its territory. 
 
 The seed of the willow loses its power of germination within a few 
 hours or days ; hence it is confined mainly to the borders of streams, where 
 favorable opportunities for sprouting exist. The acacia and others of the 
 leguminous tribe, like the black locust, preserve their seed alive for many 
 years ; nay, the seed of the former will often lie buried in the ground for
 
 33 
 
 years until a fire that destroys all other vegetation breaks their hard seed 
 coat and calls to life the dormant germ ; the cones of some pines remain 
 closed, and release the seed only when fire, which has probably destroyed 
 all competitors, opens them. The peculiarities of the seed, then, account 
 for much in the distribution of plants. 
 
 Next comes the peculiarity of growth. The long-leaf pine, which, for 
 the first four years, does not grow more than two or three inches above the 
 ground, is at a disadvantage in that first period, during which it has occu- 
 pied itself with forming a stout root system ; but thereafter, by virtue of 
 this root system, it may endure what a faster growing neighbor could not. 
 The thickly growing aspen covers large areas, but its reign is of short dur- 
 ation, for, as with most of the rapid growers, its life is short. The slower 
 growing spruce or pine, which could support itself under the light shade of 
 the aspen creeps in, and remains on the field, the victor by sheer persist- 
 ency. 
 
 While rapid, persistent height-growth enables these to escape the 
 would-be suppressor, endurance of drouth or of excessive moisture, of heat 
 or cold, and of shade favors others ; windstorms and decay, in our primeval 
 forests, acting as allies now to one, now to the other side, and thus chang- 
 ing the balance of power again and again. 
 
 In this struggle for supremacy between the different arborescent spe- 
 cies, the competition is finally less for soil than for light, the most import- 
 ant factor of life, especially for tree growth. It is under the influence of 
 light that foliage develops and that leaves exercise their functions and feed 
 the tree by assimilating the carbon of the air and transpiring the water 
 from the soil ; the more foliage and the more light at its disposal a tree has. 
 the more vigorously it will grow and spread itself. 
 
 Now, the spreading oak or beech of the open field finds close neigh- 
 bors in the forest, and is narrowed in from all sides and forced to lengthen 
 its shaft, to elevate its crown, to reach up for light, if it would escape being 
 overshadowed, suppressed and perhaps finally killed by more powerful, 
 densely- foliaged competitors. From the shape of the tree and of its crown 
 we can judge whether it had to wrestle with neighbors. The important 
 fact, which predicts the issue and the final result, is that the various species 
 are differently endowed as regards their ability to tolerate the shade or as 
 to the amount of light which they need for their existence. 
 
 Go into the dense forests and see what kinds of trees you find there in 
 the deep shade, and then go into an opening recently made, an abandoned 
 field or other place where the full benefit of light is to be had by all alike, 
 and you will find a different set altogether occupying the ground. In the 
 first case, you will find, perhaps, beech and sugar-maple, or fir and spruce : 
 in the second case, you may find aspen, poplars, willow, soft maple, oaks 
 or pines, tamarack, etc.
 
 34 
 
 All trees ultimately thrive best in full enjoyment of light and then only 
 develop their characteristic form. Uut, just as some species can adapt 
 themselves to excess or deficiency in moisture conditions, so some can sub- 
 sist and even thrive with less light than others, and we can classify and 
 grade the species accordingly into tolerant or shade-enduring and intoler- 
 ant or light-needing. 
 
 The dense spruce and fir forest shows by the number of trees that can 
 occupy an acre the capacity of the species to thrive in the shade of neigh- 
 bors, while the open pine forest gives an indication that the species re- 
 quires larger amounts of light to thrive. 
 
 The densely- foliaged crown of the hemlock, with the branches beset 
 with leaves into the very interior, attests its extreme shade endurance, 
 while the light- foliaged, open-crowned larch or poplar, ash or birch, or 
 even pine, show their extreme sensitiveness to the absence of light by the 
 very openness of their crowns, by losing their lower branches early and by 
 the inability of their seedlings and young progeny to endure the shade of 
 neighbors or even of their own parent trees. 
 
 To offset this drawback in their constitution, they have usually some 
 advantage in the character of the seed and are mostly endowed with a rapid 
 height growth in their youth, so that, at least when the competition for 
 light starts with even chances, they may secure their share by growing 
 away from their would-be suppressors. They can keep themselves in a 
 mixed forest only by keeping ahead and occupying the upper crown level, 
 as the White Pine does. The tolerant species, on the other hand, able to 
 thrive in the shade of light- foliaged species, usually increases more slowly 
 in height ; but their capacity of shade endurance assures to them a perma- 
 nent place in the forest. 
 
 Many of them are characterized by a height growth which, though 
 slow, is persistent ; while the light-needing species, by falling behind in 
 their rate of height growth, often lose in the end what they attained in their 
 youth. As a result the shade endurers finally become dominant and the 
 light needers occur in the mixed forest only sporadically, the remnants or 
 single survivors of groups, all the outside members of which have perish- 
 ed ; and only when a windstorm or insect pest creates an opening of suffic- 
 ient size is a chance for their reproduction given. 
 
 Thus the composition and general appearance of the mixed forest is 
 largely influenced by this difference in light requirements of the species 
 present and its numerical make up also depends upon the require- 
 ments by each individual and its capacity to get ahead of its neighbor. 
 
 Just as in the mixed forest the species are distributed according w/ 
 their shade endurance, so in the pure forest of one species, or of species of 
 equal tolerance, will the different-sized or different-aged trees develop side 
 by side according to available light, each crowding the other, the laggards 
 being finally killed by the withdrawal of light.
 
 The victory comes to those, who by virtue of inherited superior vigor 
 or owing to the chance of finding better soil, domineer the community, just 
 as in the human world, the modest are driven to the wall. 
 
 But, finally, even these victors must give way, for, as Hercules, the 
 unconquerable, succumbed to the poison that penetrated to his bones, so 
 does the mighty giant of the forest fall a prey to the insidious work of rot 
 and fungus and insects and storms. When its heart is riddled and weak- 
 ened, first the dry branches crumble and gradually give opportunity for the 
 young aftergrowth of shade-enduring kinds, waiting patiently for light, to 
 strengthen; then break the large limbs and the dry top, and, having 
 weathered the onslaught of the storms for centuries and the guerillas of the 
 fungus tribe for decades, finally the giant falls, with its decaying substance 
 enriching the soil for future generations. Into the breach rush the young 
 epigones, each struggling to supplant their progenitor and to preserve the 
 forest. 
 
 It is in consequence of these changes in light conditions that the altern- 
 ations of forest growth take place, oak following pine, or pine following 
 oak ; poplars, birches, cherries, apearing on the sunny burns, and spruce, 
 hickory, beech and maple creeping into the shade of these light-needing 
 species and, in time, supplanting them. 
 
 While, in the Eastern forest, under natural conditions, the rotation of 
 power is accomplished in from 300 to 500 years, the old monarchs of the 
 Pacific, towering above all competitors, have held sway 2,000 or more years. 
 And, in this warfare, with changes in climatic and soil conditions going on 
 at the same time, it may well occur that a whole race is crowded out and 
 exterminated. The virgin forest, then, is the product of long struggles, 
 extending over centuries, nay, thousands of years. Some of the mightiest 
 representatives of old families, which, at one time of prehistoric date, were 
 powerful, still survive, but are gradually succumbing to their fate in our 
 era. 
 
 The largest of our Eastern forest trees, reaching a height of 150 feet, 
 and diameters up to 12 feet, the most beautiful and one of the most useful 
 the Tulip tree (Lirodendron) is a survivor of an early era, once widely 
 distributed over the world, now confined to Eastern North America, doom- 
 ed to vanish soon from our woods owing to' man's improper partisanship. 
 Others, like the Torreyas and Cupressus, seem to have succumbed to a na- 
 tural decadence, if we may judge from their confined limits of distribution. 
 The colossal Sequoias too, remnants of an age when things generally were 
 of larger size than now, appear to be near the end of their reign ; while the 
 mighty Taxodium, the Bald Cypress, the Big Tree of the East, still seem 
 vigorous and prosperous, weird with the grey Tillandsia or Spanish moss, 
 being able to live with wet feet without harm to its constitution. 
 
 So far we have considered the evolution of the forest only from the 
 geographical and botanical point of view, and the history of its struggle for
 
 existence against the elements and against the lower vegetation and other 
 forces of nature. A new chapter of its life history, a new relation, a new 
 point of view, began when man came upon the scene, and finally man has 
 become the most influential factor in the evolution of the forest, changing 
 it in composition and character of development. 
 
 FELLING TIMBER.
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 SILVICULTURE, OR METHODS OF FOREST 
 CROP PRODUCTION. 
 
 The main business and concern of the silviculturist is contained in the 
 reproduction of the wood crop, and his one obligation is that he must re- 
 produce, the crop which he has harvested in any year. 
 
 As the farmer sows and reaps so the forester harvests and replaces, 
 although the methods of the two have little in common ; nor are the meth- 
 ods applicable which are used by the orchardist or the landscape gardener. 
 The tree which satisfies these does not at all satisfy the requirements of the* 
 forester, for his point of view, his aim, is a different one, and hence his 
 methods are his own. In fact, single trees are not his object any more than 
 the single grass-blade is the object of the farmer; the largest amount of 
 wood in the most saleable and profitable form is his aim, logs rather than 
 trees, and the financial results from their harvest. The final aim of the 
 silviculturist is, therefore, attained only when he has removed the old trees 
 and replaced them by a young crop. He grows trees in masses and for 
 their substance. Not only does he deal with trees in masses, but with trees 
 in natural conditions, being by financial considerations often limited in the 
 use of artificial aids and methods, such as the other tree culturists and the 
 farmer in his crop production may employ. 
 
 Restricted as he is, or finally will be, to the poorer soils and conditions, 
 those least favorable to agricultural production, he is forced to the most 
 conservative management of the natural conditions in order to secure a de- 
 sirable result without too much expenditure, which his long-maturing crop 
 cannot repay. 
 
 In every productive industry there can be recognized two branches : 
 namely, the business branch and the technical branch. 
 
 The silviculturist is the one who handles the technical branch of the 
 business, namely, the production of the crop or material. 
 
 The technical branch is divided into several sub-branches, the chief 
 among which are : Silviculture, Forest Protection, Forest Exploitation. 
 Silviculture is a branch of arboriculture. Forest Protection is the art of 
 protecting the forest from adverse agencies such as fire, storms, pests, etc. 
 Forest exploitation is the art of harvesting the forest growth to the best ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 It is incumbent upon the silviculturist to secure continuity of favor- 
 able conditions in order to secure continuity of the crop. The forest man- 
 ager who looks after the revenue may often be found at odds with the sil- 
 viculturist, the pocket interest preventing the ideals of silviculture. 
 
 259801
 
 The character of the wood crop differs from that of the agricultural 
 crop, especially in the fact that it takes many years before it can be harvest- 
 ed. If the agriculturist makes a mistake in planting one year he can rec- 
 tify his error the next year, whereas the forester can never rectify any such 
 error until the next crop. Therefore it is necessary for the silviculturist to 
 make closer study of the life history of his material than the agriculturist 
 needs to make. He must be more circumspect in planning his crop, so that 
 it will become self-sustaining. 
 
 The silviculturist, as before noticed, must make a selection from the 
 300 to 500 species of trees that occur naturally with us, to grow. He must 
 grow those varieties which arc reasonably sure of a market when they ma- 
 ture. These 500 species may be divided into those which are useful and 
 those which are but tree weeds. What is a weed ? It is a plant the use of 
 which has not been found out yet. In order to select those species which 
 we are going to reproduce we must have a relative value of the various 
 species established. A glance at the market reports shows us that not more 
 than TO of these 500 species are being used and sold. Changes, however, 
 will occur. Some species will fall into disuse, and other species that are 
 now in disuse will become their substitutes. The -case of the Hemlock 
 might be cited as an example. The silviculturist must therefore forecast 
 the future. One thing we are fairly sure of is that the timber at present in 
 use in largest quantity will be sure of a market in the future. Among this 
 last class we can place the conifers and especially the white pine, which 
 furnish the bulk of our lumber. We must also suit our trees to the clima- 
 tic conditions of the country, there being little chance for acclimatizing 
 them, hence native species are mostly preferable. The choice of soil must 
 also be considered. The trees rely less upon the mineral constituents than 
 upon the physical conditions, and hence we relegate the best soil to the 
 agriculturist. Water, however, is the important factor, and thus the silvi- 
 culturist tries to secure favorable water conditions, the depth of soil being 
 of much importance in this respect, especially with deep-rooted species. 
 
 Other considerations also influence his operations, such as the pre- 
 servation of soil and moisture, which is the most essential contribution of 
 the soil to tree growth, and which requires the soil to be kept shaded. 
 
 In fact, there is nothing that a forester guards so jealously, next to the 
 light conditions at the crown, as the soil conditions : A soil free of 
 weeds and grass and covered as amply as possible with a heavy mulch ot 
 decaving leaves and twigs, and if this best protection of the soil moisture 
 be deficient, a cover of shrubby undergrowth which requires less water 
 than weeds and grass this is the character of a desirable forest floor. 
 
 Altogether it will have appeared from the previous study of tree 
 growth and forest development that the entire silvicultural operations with 
 an established crop resolve themselves into one, namely, proper manage- 
 ment of light conditions, which is secured by the judicious use of the axe.
 
 39 
 
 Let us now examine the best way of forming a forest. A mixed stand 
 is best for all purposes, but it requires more skill in its management. In a 
 mixed stand we combine the tolerant and intolerant varieties, the deep-root- 
 ed with the shallow-rooted varieties, thus using all the available root and 
 air space. This arrangement is also a protection against insects, fires, 
 winds, snow and other destructive agencies, and, moreover, such a stand 
 furnishes a varied product. 
 
 There are two methods of starting a crop : artificial re-forestation and 
 natural regeneration, secured by the proper use of the axe. In harvesting 
 the old crop the new crop may b? reproduced. 
 
 Most of our deciduous trees will sprout and thus replace 
 their fore-runners by a coppice growth,, consisting of sprouts from 
 the stumps. The simplest and crudest method of reproduction 
 \vhich results naturally when the old hard woods are cut, is ap- 
 plicable only to the broad-leaved trees which are capable of producing val- 
 uable shoots in this manner. The capacity for sprouting is possessed in 
 ('.ifferent degrees by the different species and is more or less lost by all in 
 old age ; and especially after repeated harvests the stumps become exhaust- 
 ed and die, so that the forest is apt gradually to deteriorate in composition 
 as well as in density, unless fresh blood is added by reproduction from 
 seed. Thus in Pennsylvania, where the system has been in vogue for a 
 century or more to furnish charcoal for the iron furnaces, the valuable 
 white oaks and hickories have been crowded out by the chestnut, which is 
 a superior sprouter. 
 
 Another disadvantage of this coppice system, under which the wood- 
 lands of deciduous trees in almost all New England and Atlantic States 
 are produced, is that, although the sprouts develop much faster than the 
 seedlings from the start, they soon fall off in their growth, and are capable 
 merely of furnishing small dimensions and firewood. The coppice, there- 
 fore, is useful only for certain purposes, but cannot be relied upon to furn- 
 ish material for the great lumber market. 
 
 The deterioration consequent upon the continued application of the 
 coppice is best studied in Italy and in certain parts of France where ser 
 viceable timber is almost unknown, and fagots of small firewood are pre- 
 cious articles. 
 
 All other methods of regeneration, both artificial and natural, depend 
 ultimately upon the use of seed. In order to reproduce with any degree of 
 success the silviculturist must secure good seed, good seed bed, good light, 
 and good protection for his seedlings. The choice of method depends upon 
 financial as well as silvicultural considerations. 
 
 In protection forests and luxury forests in which the requirement of a 
 continuous soil cover may be paramount, methods in which the old crop is 
 very slowly removed and replaced by the new crop are indicated, even if 
 financial and silvicultural results would make other methods desirable.
 
 40 
 
 In supply forests the cheapest method which secures desirable propor- 
 tionate results in the crop is to be chosen. This must vary according to lo- 
 cal conditions, such as climate, soil, species, cost of planting and of log- 
 ging- 
 
 The clearing process followed by artificial replacement entails a money 
 outlay for the latter from year to year ; the gradual removal methods with 
 natural seeding avoid, to be sure, this outlay, but since, to secure the same 
 amount of harvest, a larger territory must be cut over, they entail large in- 
 itial investment for means of transportation, which must be maintained for 
 all the years of removal and they occasion also otherwise greater expenses 
 in the harvest than the concentrated logging in the clearing system, which 
 may be done over temporary roads. 
 
 Over 80 per cent, of the forests of Germany are managed under a 
 clearing system and rapid removal systems, and only 20 per cent, under 
 slow removal and other systems. 
 
 Where, as in our culled forests, the valuable species have been removed 
 and the weed trees have been left in possession, it stands to reason that no 
 regeneration method will re-establish the better species ; they must be res- 
 tored by artificial means. 
 
 These slo-.v removal methods consist in opening small spaces or nar- 
 row strips so as to prepare the soil and let in sufficient light to cause the 
 germination of the seeds which fall from the trees left standing. 
 
 Trees seed only in periods, for example, the white pine seeds only 
 every three or five years, and we must know when the seed year is going to 
 occur. Some species have seeds every year, and if they are not desirable 
 we must cut so as to get rid of them. 
 
 In our virgin woods the seedbed often is undesirable. The litter must 
 be decomposed to furnish a good seed bed so that the tiny fibrous roots of 
 the seed may reach mineral soil. Some species require more light than 
 others in youth, and hence the parent trees must be removed more or less 
 rapidly. 
 
 One of the simplest methods of regeneration is the strip method. This 
 consists in cutting a strip of trees from the land in such a way that the wind 
 will blow the seeds from the trees standing on to the cut part. Another 
 strip is cut the next year, and so following. Another of the crude methods 
 is an improvement on the lumberman's method of cutting old trees here and 
 there and thus giving light to the young volunteer aftergrowth ; the so- 
 called "selection" method. The lumberman culls, to be sure, only the trees 
 he can use, but tre forester works from the standpoint of the young crop, 
 i.e., he cuts with a view to the best interest of the young crop. The best 
 method, where practicable, consists in the gradual but more rapid removal 
 of the whole crop so that the young crop will have a clear new field to 
 start on.
 
 42 
 
 In this so-called "nurse-tree" method the periods of cutting must re- 
 ceive consideration. A preparatory cut secures better seed production and 
 also a better seed bed and better light ; the next cut is made to secure full 
 seed production ; this is followed by two or more removal cuttings, as the 
 young crop demands ; until finally, in 3 to 20 years, the whole old crop is re- 
 moved. 
 
 In Germany, over 50 per cent, of the reproduction is done by artificial 
 means, and this is found to be most satisfactory. After the crop is pro- 
 duced there is still a chance of improving it by accelerating its development. 
 It is possible to increase the production 2 to 3 fold by a proper use of the 
 axe. 
 
 As in the natural methods the axe is the only tool which is used to se- 
 cure the regeneration, so is the axe the only tool which cultivates the young 
 crop, such cultivation consisting in the judicious removal of surplus trees 
 
 GERMAN SPRUCE FOREST.
 
 43 
 
 by the so-called thinnings, by which the quantity and quality of the crop is 
 increased. To understand this, it is necessary to know that trees form 
 wood by the function of the foliage under the influence of light. 
 
 Hence, a tree with much foliage and unimpeded access of light is 
 bound to make much wood. These conditions are fulfilled when the tree is 
 allowed to grow in open stand, as on a lawn, without close neighbors, who 
 would cut off some of the light supply. 
 
 But trees under such conditions grow mostly into branches, the crown 
 'being developed at the expense of the bole, which remains short and more 
 or less conical in shape, of little commercial or technical use, except for 
 fire wood. When the trunk is sawn into boards, every branch appears as a 
 defect, known as a knot, which makes it unfit for use in the better class of 
 work, and thus while the total quantity of wood in the tree is increased 
 by the open stand, it is done at the expense of quality. 
 
 The object of the forester, however, is not simply to grow wood, but 
 to produce wood of such form and quality as is useful in the arts. The ideal 
 tree for him is one with a long, cylindrical, branchless trunk, bearing its 
 crown high up, which when cut into lumber produces the largest amount 
 of material clear of knots, of straight fibre, and giving the least amount of 
 waste or fire wood. 
 
 His aim, therefore, must be to so place his trees that, while the largest 
 possible amount of wood shall be produced, it shall be deposited in the most 
 useful form also.
 
 44 
 
 By a close position, when each tree cuts off the side light from its 
 neighbors, the formation of branches is prevented, or the branches which 
 were formed, being overshadowed, soon lose their vitality, die, and finallv 
 break off, leaving the shaft smooth, and, if this clearing was effected before 
 the branches had reached considerable size, the amount of clear lumber is 
 increased. 
 
 But again, if the trees are kept too close, if too many trees are allowed 
 to grow on the acre, each one having the smallest amount of foliage and 
 light at its disposal, the amount of wood produced by the acre may be fullv 
 as large as it is capable of producing, but it is distributed over so many in- 
 dividuals that each develops at the very slowest rate, and hence does not 
 grow to useful size in the shortest time. 
 
 To secure his object, producing the largest amount per acre of the 
 most useful wood in the shortest time, the forester must know what num-* 
 ber of trees to permit to grow so as to balance the advantages and disad- 
 vantages of close and open position. 
 
 This number differs not only according to the species composing his 
 crop, but also according to soil and climatic conditions and to the age of the 
 crop. 
 
 Some trees having considerable capacity of enduring shade, like the 
 beech, sugar-maple, or spruce, may require many more individuals to the 
 acre than the more light-needing oaks and pines ; on richer soils fewer in- 
 dividuals will produce satisfactory results, when on poorer soils more indi- 
 viduals must be kept on the acre. The question of the proper number of 
 trees to be allowed to grow per acre at different ages is one of the most dif- 
 ficult, on which practitioners differ widely. 
 
 In general, however, the practitioner has recognized the necessity of 
 preserving a dense position for the first twenty to thirty years of the young 
 crop, sacrificing quantitative development to quality and form. The close 
 stand secures the long, branchless, cylindrical trunk, which furnishes the 
 clear saw-logs of greatest value. Then, when the maximum rate of height 
 growth has been attained, a more or less severe thinning is indicated, in or- 
 der to secure quantitative development, and these thinnings are repeated 
 periodically, to give more light as the crowns close up, and also to utilize 
 such of the trees as are falling behind in this wood production. 
 
 As a result of judicious thinnings, the rate at which the remaining 
 crop develops may be doubled and quadrupled, the heavy, more valuable 
 sizes are made in shorter time, and, where the inferior material removed in 
 the thinnings is salable, a much larger total produce is in the end secured 
 from the acre, for many of the trees which were removed and utilized 
 would have died, fallen, and decayed in the natural struggle for existence. 
 
 In German forest management the amount utilized in thinnings 
 amounts to 25 per cent, and more of the final harvest yield.
 
 45 
 
 While the crop is developing it is, of course, necessary to protect it 
 against damage of various kinds. The young seedlings of some species 
 are apt to suffer from frost or drouth, which is avoided by growing them 
 under shelter of older trees, by draining wet places, securing opportunity 
 tor cold air to draw off, etc. mostly preventive measures. In prairie 
 and plain it may be possible to assist their resistance to such damage by 
 cultivating the ground ap the farmer does, but in the real forest country 
 such means are excluded by the character of the ground and the expense. 
 
 Animals, and especially insects, are frequently injurious to the new 
 crop, and insects also to old trees, by their defoliation. This damage, too, 
 can be largely obviated by preventive measures. 
 
 Since many, if not most, injurious insects feed on one species, or at 
 least one genus, mixed forests resist their danger better, since the number 
 of host plants is reduced and the intermixed trees impede progress and de- 
 velopment of the pest. 
 
 Wind-storms are a danger to older timber, especially of shallow-root- 
 ed species, like the spruce, and on soft soils and exposed slopes or mountain 
 tops. Here, care must be taken in keeping the stand well thinned, so that 
 the trees may get accustomed to the swaying of the winds in more open 
 stand. In this way they are induced individually to form a better root sys- 
 tem and become wind-firm, while in the dense stand their strength was only 
 in the union with neighbors. 
 
 The greatest danger to forest properties, however, is fire, and the pro-i 
 tection against this most unnecessary evil resulting mainly from man's 
 carelessness, absorbs a large part of the energy of the forester. Proper po- 
 lice, but also silvicultural measures, reduce the amount of danger and dam- 
 age. Young crops, during the seedling and brushwood stage, are readily 
 killed, while older timber may stand scorching without much or any 
 damage. 
 
 A damage even greater than the loss of the crop is experienced in the 
 loss of the soil cover, the litter and duff, which is the forester's manure. 
 This loss may become irreparable in localities where only a thin layer of 
 mineral soil overlies the rock, and the opportunity for starting a new crop 
 may be entirely destroyed. The fire danger in Canada, while much re- 
 duced, is still so great that in many localities it almost prohibits the practice 
 of forestry ; for who would want to invest money and energy in a property 
 which is exposed to extra risks from fire by the absence of proper legisla- 
 tion, or by the lack of police and moral support on the part of the commun- 
 ity in enforcing it, by the unpunished negligence or malice of incendiaries, 
 and by the populational conditions of the country, which prevent the econ- 
 omical disposal of the debris from logging operations ? 
 
 Partial burning and piling of the brush reduce the danger somewhat, 
 but hardly in proportion to the expense. The readiest remedy, where for- 
 estry is to be praticed under such conditions, is to make a clean sweep, that
 
 46 
 
 is, clearing, burning up the debris, and replanting, or else, if natural re- 
 generation is to be relied upon, adopting the strip system, when the oppor- 
 tunity ot burning the debris totally is still possible. 
 
 The only hope here, in the absence of a paying home market for fuel 
 from the inferior material, is to establish chemical works for its conversion 
 on a large scale into charcoal, acetic acid, wood alcohol, and other useful 
 manufactures. 
 
 In fact, the application of silviculture, i.e., the systematic production 
 of wood crops as a business proposition in our culled, mismanaged wood 
 lands throughout Canada is, in most cases, possible only where the means 
 exist of utilizing this inferior material ; for the risks from fire are too great, 
 or else the cash which would otherwise have to be spent in making room 
 for the young crop will surely exceed reasonable proportions. Only the 
 state or other long-lived corporations can afford to spend money now in the 
 hope of adequate returns in a distant future. 
 
 Forest crop production as a business, silviculture, will become practi- 
 cable and profitable in this country only when reasonable forest protection 
 is assured by proper exercise of state functions. 
 
 Until this is secured, lumbermen will continue to exploit the natural 
 forest without much regard to its fate after they have secured its present 
 valuable stores, for they cannot afford to assume the hazard of the fire dan- 
 ger. 
 
 Before positive sflvicultural methods are applied by them, they may 
 find it advantageous to cut the virgin forest more conservatively ; they may 
 find that it pays in the long run better not to cull too closely, that it is ad- 
 vantageous to leave more of smaller sizes, i.e., to limit the diameter to 
 which they remove trees, so that they may return sooner for a second cut, 
 and also to avoid unnecessary damage to the young volunteer crop. At 
 present the limitation of size to be cut or to be left uncut is based upon cal- 
 culations of immediate profits to be derived, and does not take into account 
 any future considerations, since the lumberman does not cut with a regard 
 to the future, but attempts to secure the largest present gain. He views 
 the forest as a mere speculation. To curtail his present revenue for the 
 sake of a future revenue by abstaining from cutting all that is marketable 
 is the first step toward changing this point of view, introducing the idea of 
 continuity, and treating the forest as a permanent investment. 
 
 It must be understood, however, that the limitation of the size of trees 
 to be cut or to be left uncut has not necessarily any bearing on the replace- 
 ment of the crop ; it is not silviculture. It is in the main a financial meas- 
 ure, it being demonstrable that it pays better to leave small sized trees to 
 accumulate more wood before utilizing them ; or else a device to prevent 
 over-cutting of a valuable species, so that it may not be eradicated too soon, 
 a wise measure whenever systematic attention to positive silviculture can- 
 not be given.
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 LUMBERMAN AND FORESTER. 
 
 All the great diversity of activities, of industries, of commodities, of 
 sources of wealth which characterize the modern civilization and give em- 
 ployment to the millions, have their origin more or less directly in that pri- 
 mary source of wealth and comfort, nay of life itself, the soil. 
 
 And next to it stands water : Water is the best thing, sang Pindar o 
 the Greeks. 
 
 But without soil to use it, it is of little avail. And yet again, soil with- 
 ' out water to support useful plant production would be an empty treasure, 
 for it is water that makes the soil available. So intimately are soil and 
 water connected that the one cannot be disassociated from the other. Just 
 as in a chemical compound, inert and separately useless or obnoxious ele- 
 ments, combine to form active, most valuable and beneficent bodies, so 
 does water and soil impart, each to the other, its value by their combin- 
 ation. 
 
 Soil and water, then, are man's richest treasure, and if he be rational 
 he would guard them more than any other sources of material wealth and 
 use them with discretion ; yet in all countries and in all ages man has been 
 careless and wasteful of these most important bases of his well-being. He 
 has squandered them lavishly, has allowed them to dissipate and to slip 
 away or to be destroyed, seemingly in utter ignorance of their important 
 bearing; whole peoples have been impoverished, practically wiped out 
 through mere neglect or abuse of these primary sources of wealth and 
 through ignorance as to the conditions and relations influencing their pres- 
 ervation. 
 
 "Man goes over the earth and leaves a desert behind him." "Precise- 
 ly that portion of the earth's surface which about the commencement of the 
 Christian era was endowed with the greatest superiority of soil and climate 
 is now completely exhausted," says Geo. P. Marsh, in his classic volume, 
 "The Earth as Modified by Man." "A territory which in bygone centuries 
 sustained a population scarcely inferior to that of the entire Christian 
 world at the present day has been brought into desolation almost as com- 
 plete as that of the moon." 
 
 Nor is this destruction of naturally favorable conditions confined to 
 that portion of the earth and that era. We can trace it over the globe and 
 through all ages, progressing only less intensely and now arrested here and 
 there by intelligent man.
 
 49 
 
 It has been reserved for the present era, with the development of na- 
 tural science, to find and appreciate the reasons for this loss and deteriora- 
 tion of our great sources ol wealth ; and finding the reasons, to suggest the 
 remedy and prevention of further loss. 
 
 We have learned only in modern times to appreciate that all things are 
 in relation, that, therefore, we cannot take away anything from the com- 
 plex conditions of nature, that we cannot destroy or modify one condition, 
 without affecting more or less all other conditions. 
 
 With regard to the soil, we have learned that its stability and its fertil- 
 ity are in most direct relation to the water conditions and the topography 
 of the land. But a third important factor that enters into the problem ol 
 the conservation of the soil and of water is its cover. This was perhaps 
 most definitely expressed by that great exponent of natural philosophy, A. 
 v. Humboldt, when he exclaims in his Cosmos: "How foolish does man 
 appear in destroying the mountain forests, for thereby he deprives himself 
 of wood and water at the same time" ; and he should have added : Of soil, 
 also! 
 
 The importance of the forest cover of the earth has only lately been 
 fully realized, not only as a furnisher of a material most needful to civiliza- 
 tion, next to food, but because of its relationship to soil and water con- 
 ditions. 
 
 Last night we learned how forests form and change in their aspects 
 under the laws of evolution without the interference of man. 
 
 To-night we propose to take up the history of the forest at the time 
 when man came upon the scene and became a tactor in the further evolution 
 of forest growth. 
 
 The history of the forest in all parts of the world has been the same. 
 
 During the age of the hunter and these ages are not separated by 
 long distances of time, but occur simultaneously in different parts of the 
 world the forest served as a harborer of the game besides furnishing the 
 small amount of fuel needed. 
 
 Perhaps, too, portions of it were carefully burned over to subdue the 
 undergrowth and facilitate the pursuit of the game without destroying the 
 shelter. 
 
 When the hunter became a farmer portions of the better soils had to 
 be cleared of their forest growth for fields and pastures, and increased de- 
 mand for wood materials to construct barns, sheds and stables, and for 
 family use necessitated further inroads upon the neighboring forest. Fires 
 used in the clearing of farm lands probably often ran beyond their bound- 
 aries through carelessness and harmed the forest more than the hunter's 
 
 fires. 
 
 Finally, when the age of modern civilization arrived, cities were 
 built and demands for wood materials arose beyond the needs of domestic 
 uses, the first lumberman found his calling, cutting and marketing the crop 
 of timber, which he found accumulated in the virgin forest.
 
 50 
 
 At first carried on in a crude manner, the exploitation was confined to 
 the woods along the water courses and along the seashore, where ready 
 means of transportation were at hand, but with the growth in population, 
 in civilization, in industrial activity, the development of railroads 
 and improved means of transportation, the need for forest products grew, 
 and the art of the lumberman and the wood-worker experienced the won- 
 derful development we know to-day, so that in magnitude of interests the 
 business of exploiting the forest, manufacturing and purveying its pro- 
 ducts is next to the business of producing and handling food materials, the 
 largest in all fully civilized countries. 
 
 I have dilated yesterday on the enormous and ever increasing needs 
 for wood materials in our modern civilization, but in order to accentuate 
 the great importance of the business of the lumberman, the necessity of his 
 existence, 1 am tempted to add just one way of stating what the lumber 
 business means in comparison with other interests, at least to the people of 
 the United States, and I dare say a similar comparison could be made for 
 Canada, a comparison which was made on the basis of the Census of 1880 
 by Prof. James, but holds probably still approximately true : 
 
 LOG JAM, MADAWASKA, 
 
 Photo by Houghton W. Wilsor
 
 51 
 
 "If to the value of the total output of all our veins of gold, silver, copper, 
 lead, zinc, iron and coal, were added the value derived from the petroleum 
 wells and stone quarries and this sum were increased by the estimated 
 value of all steamboats, sailing vessels, canal boats, flat boats, and barges, 
 plying in American waters and belonging to the citizens of the United 
 States, it would still be less than the value of the annual forest crop by a- 
 sum sufficient to purchase at cost of construction all canals, buy at par all 
 the stock of the telegraph companies, pay their bonded debts and construct 
 and equip all telephone lines in the United States. It exceeds the gross in- 
 come of all the railroads and transportation companies, it would pay the in- 
 debtedness of all the States, counties, townships, school-districts and cities 
 included, excepting New York and Pennsylvania." What do we conclude 
 from these considerations and facts? That the lumberman, the purveyor 
 of these forest products, is a most necessary and important factor in our 
 civilization, that the Arbor-day oratory of "Woodman, spare that tree," 
 with opprobrium thrust at the wood-choppers is puerile and inappreciative 
 of the proportions which a reform in methods of forest exploitation must 
 assume. 
 
 KATCHEWANOOKA LAKE. 
 
 Photo by Houghton W. Wilson.
 
 52 
 
 I have shown you these illustrations of the activities of the lumber 
 trade to impress you with the fact that forests grow to be used, trees must 
 be cut to supply our needs of wood materials, wood-choppers and lumber- 
 men must be active; only one other activity is to be added to theirs; that 
 of the forester, modifying their manner of cutting and of using the forest. 
 Both forester and lumberman are in the business of providing our require- 
 ments for wood materials, both are concerned in the utilization of the for- 
 est, both are harvesters, but while every forester must be a logger, the log- 
 ger does not proceed in the same manner as the forester. 
 
 The difference between the logger and the forester is that the former 
 is a harvester of nature s crop, an exploiter of the natural resource, cash- 
 ing the accumulated wood capital, a mere converter into useful shape of a 
 crop to the production of which he has contributed nothing and to the re- 
 production of which he does not give any thought, while the forester is a 
 producer of wood crops, just as the farmer is the producer of food crops ; 
 when he harvests the naturally grown wood crop it is with the view of re- 
 producing again and again systematically another crop from the same 
 ground. The main difference, then, between forester and lumberman is 
 their attitude towards the future. 
 
 The lumberman treats the forest much like a mine from which he re- 
 moves the pay-ore, leaving the less valuable rest to its fate and nature's 
 care. To him the forest is not an investment but a speculation from which 
 he tries to withdraw as soon as possible both capital and profit. Hence, all 
 his appliances, his camps and shanties are only temporary structures which 
 he allows to collapse or which he removes when he has cut out what will 
 pay him at present to take. 
 
 His roads, if he makes any, intended only for temporary use, namely, 
 until the present harvest is secured, are made as cheaply as possible. In 
 many parts they are passable only in winter time, when snow has covered 
 the uneven ground and by means of water sprinklers an ice road can be 
 secured. 
 
 Even the railroads, the modern means of conveying the harvest to 
 main lines and to mills, are only roughly built, for they are in a few years 
 to be abandoned or shifted, unless their location is such as to warrant their 
 change into regular carriers. 
 
 The harvest is made without regard to the fate of the young growth 
 present or any possible aftergrowth, the interest of the logger being only in 
 the present. There is often little care and thought given to a thorough 
 utilization of even the valuable parts, but certainly whatever is not saleable 
 at present, is neglected, despised, destroyed. We do not say ruthlessly, or 
 recklessly, which implies absence of all reasonable consideration, for the 
 logger reckons and he has ruth or regret he reckons, however, only from 
 one point of view, namely, that of present profits, and he regrets merely 
 that there is not more profit to be had from the part destroyed. Whatever
 
 53 
 
 curtails profits must be avoided, cheap production of the harvest is his only 
 hope of satisfactory margin ; his business is to reap the present harvest, and 
 only that part which pays ; the future must take care of itself. The stand- 
 point of the logger is properly and consistently chosen, whatever may be 
 the point of view of the economist. 
 
 The lumberman, like any other business man, chooses first of all or a\- 
 together to consider his private pocket interest, which lies in the present ; 
 he cannot afford or does not choose to include a distant future in his cal- 
 culations, for the future belongs to others. 
 
 What is the result of his operations in the forest ? 
 Since nature produces mostly mixed forest and does so without any 
 economic considerations as to composition, quality and quantity, producing 
 weed trees with the valuable, old and young, large and small, the merchan- 
 table with the unmerchantable, in careless mixture, and since the lumber- 
 man takes only the desirable kinds and the best sizes, cutting here and 
 there, his operations may leave the forest in such a condition that a layman 
 may not even see a change has taken place the forest cover is hardly inter- 
 rupted, the few trees taken are not missed, the debris soon decays, and 
 seemingly no damage is done. This is often the case where a hardwood 
 forest contains a few conifers, and these alone are taken. If the desirable 
 kinds are more frequent, and hence the openings larger and more frequent, 
 the debris more plentiful, the interference becomes more readily visible. 
 Finally, where, as in the pineries, in the Redwoods, in the coniferous forest 
 generally, the mercantile kinds and sizes cover the ground nearly entirely, 
 the lumberman's selective cutting becomes almost or entirely a clearing, a 
 real denudation. 
 
 In each of the three cases, there is one damage that is likely to result, 
 namely, an undesirable change in aftergrowth. 
 
 If, as is customary, he culls from the mixed forest only those specie* 
 which are useful to him, and leaves in possession the less desirable, the 
 weeds, these necessarily provide for the succession of their own kind. If 
 it be a shade-enduring species which he values, like the spruce, its repro- 
 duction may still be possible, provided the openings are large enough, and 
 enough seed trees are left to provide the new progeny, although necessarily 
 the amount of the useful reproduction must be curtailed. If it is a light- 
 needing species, 1'ke the white pine, that he has culled, its reproduction is 
 practically prevented in many cases by the mere presence of the unused 
 portions of the stand. In the competition with other, especially shade-en- 
 during, trees, the light-needing species is placed at a disadvantage and dis- 
 appears from the woods, unless man himself actively assists in its re-estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 If he clear the entire native growth, but leave a neighboring stand un- 
 touched, the species with light-winged seeds and capable of developing in 
 full sunlight without the protecting shade of mother trees, will soon re- 
 cover the bared ground.
 
 54 
 
 If he remove all that he desires and destroy the rest by fire, the re- 
 establishment must pass through nearly all the phases of evolution, which 
 the virgin woods had to pass. Where the denudation had been complete, 
 the lower vegetation of weeds and brush must occupy the ground first, and 
 only after long struggle can tree growth re-establish itself. 
 
 Thousands of acres are in this condition ; wooded, sometimes densely 
 wooded, but the value gone, from the supply point of view. With the tim- 
 ber of present value gone, the interest of the lumberman is gone, and with 
 the slash left on the ground and the carelessness to which our people are 
 bred with things that are apparently useless, the almost unavoidable se- 
 quence in such slashings is the forest fire. 
 
 While the direct damage to the future which the lumberman inflicts by 
 his harvesting process, in reducing valuable aftergrowth, is considerable, 
 it is altogether small in proportion to the much greater indirect damage 
 which is the consequence of these fires. And here again let me impress 
 you with the thought that, from the standpoint of the community, the lea.st 
 damage of these fires is the destruction of the standing timber, although 
 many millions of dollars worth of timber are annually destroyed ; the much 
 greater damage is that to the future, to the coming generations. A light 
 fire running over the ground, if it were confined to the slash itself, during 
 a season when it is burning with the least fury, as in the early spring when 
 snow is still on the ground, might be even a benefit in reducing the brush 
 and thus giving better chance for an after-growth. But usually these fires 
 start at the most dangerous season, dry and drouthy, and are not confined, 
 but run into the green timber. In the deciduous-leaved forest they run 
 slowly, injuring the mature trees at the base and causing decay to set in, 
 which may finally result in death. In the coniferous forest, some species, 
 with a thick bark, will withstand a.light running fire without injury, but 
 usually in dry seasons the timber is killed outright, and if not cut at once, 
 insect pests, the secondary result of forest fires, will finish it. In many 
 cases the first fire does only partial damage, but a repetition is then so much 
 more disastrous, and finally, with windstorms throwing the damaged 
 trunks, the repeated fires not only clean up all the timber, but burn up the 
 surface soil itself, at least the fertile surface portion of it. 
 
 The carelessness of hunters and farmers continues, burning over 
 again and again the scanty vegetation until finally the bare rock is reached 
 and nothing grows a man-made desert is the result. 
 
 In Wisconsin at least 8 million acres have thus been reduced to waste* 
 and now efforts are being made to recover the land by reforestation. 
 
 Erosion of soils, landslips filling rivers, floods, and drifting sands, are 
 some of the consequences of this devastation. 
 
 One evil which has hardly ever been pointed out is the increase of 
 windfalls. By opening up the forest, the trees which had learned only to 
 stand up in union, become exposed directly to the sweeping winds and are 
 laid low. Insects follow.
 
 MAN MADE DESERT. 
 
 Burnt slope after seven fires. 
 
 MAN 'MADE DESERT.
 
 56 
 
 SOIL EROSION. 
 
 That all young after-growth falls a victim to the forest fire, be it ever 
 so slight, stands to reason, and, with the changes in condition of the soil, 
 the soil cover, and the light conditions in the crowns, a growth of valueless 
 species, shrubs and tree-weeds occupies the ground. 
 
 The lumberman, then, in so far as he supplies us with the necessary 
 wood materials, is a legitimate factor in our civilization ; in so far as by his 
 methods he destroys, indirectly or directly, the soil, the after-growth, and 
 the chances for re-habilitating it, he is from the standpoint of political 
 economy a dangerous element, at least to future generations. We must, to 
 be sure, admit that peculiar economic conditions have forced his methods 
 upon him, and he is left without proper assistance in reducing the danger, 
 by lack of proper appreciation of the damage inflicted, on the part of the 
 public and the state authorities which alone are the representatives of the 
 community and should especially guard the interest of the future. 
 
 Not until this appreciation of the duties of the community has led to 
 proper effort in reducing the fire danger, is there hope in changing the 
 methods of the logger materially ; not until forest properties are rendered 
 comparatively safe from incendiarism will it become rational and practi- 
 cable to apply forestry methods to their management. 
 
 The forester also is a lumberman ; he, too, harvests his crop ; his busi- 
 ness, too, lies in supplying wood materials to the community, as you may
 
 57 
 
 see in the German forest. The only difference between lumberman and 
 forester is that the latter must provide for a new crop as valuable, or more 
 so, than nature made it. 
 
 You will see that the forester is not after the beauty, but after the sub- 
 stance of the tree ; he, like the logger, uses the axe to harvest the crop, nay 
 he utilizes the forest even more closely than the lumberman ; for he must in 
 some way make use of the inferior kinds and parts, the tops and branches, 
 and even, if necessary, he must spend some money in making useful or else 
 removing the brushwood. This is often impracticable, and by so much the 
 forester is impeded in his main business by the economic and market con- 
 ditions. He must do some "dead work,'' in order to create conditions fav- 
 orable for his main business, and his main business is to secure a new and 
 better crop of wood from the same soil for the future. He is not satisfied 
 with the mere harvest of what nature has accumulated, leaving it to nature 
 to do as it pleases in replacing the harvest ; but he feels himself obligated to 
 provide systematically for a future and better crop than nature alone could 
 produce. 
 
 The forester's song is not "Woodman, spare that tree," but "Wood- 
 man, cut that tree judiciously," so that a new generation may arise where it 
 stood. 
 
 Under the forester's care, then, the trees will be cut and removed, but 
 the forest will persist. He is the preserver of the forest, not in the manner 
 in which the public is often made to believe, namely, by preventing the use 
 of the wood, but as all life is preserved, by removing the old and fostering 
 the young growth. He is a sower as well as a reaper, a planter as well as 
 a logger, for forestry is, with regard to wood crops, what agriculture is, 
 with regard to food crops. 
 
 He may secure this new crop either by cutting off and removing all 
 the old crop and replanting the ground, a method which is often the only 
 possible one with our mismanaged virgin woods, where the useful species 
 have been eliminated or where fire has destroyed all the old timber. Or 
 else he may secure it from the seeds of the trees already on the ground, by 
 skilful management of the light conditions, gradually removing the mother 
 trees and securing what is called a natural regeneration. , 
 
 In the latter case, before he utilizes the kinds for which he wishes to 
 perpetuate the forest, he culls the inferior and leaves, until they have repro- 
 duced, only the more useful ; he gives direction and assists in the struggle 
 for supremacy the most fit ; he substitutes artificial selection for natural 
 selection, assuring the protected survival of the most useful. The forester's 
 forest, then, differs from nature's forest, developed under the laws of 
 natural evolution ; for he introduces the economic point of view. And, when 
 he finally gathers the harvest, he secures not only a larger total and more 
 valuable product for the present, but a reproduction of only the best kind 
 for the future.
 
 By these means the German forests of to-day have been 
 produced, which, while they may lack in picturesqueness, are of 
 superior economic value, producing, on soils which are not fit for agricul- 
 ture, in half the time, double the useful material that nature's forest has 
 produced. This is done by reserving the soil for useful species only, by 
 thinning out from time to time, and thus benefiting the remaining stand, 
 securing the largest amount in the most useful form on the smallest num- 
 ber per acre. And, finally, the harvest is made, as thoroughly as the farm- 
 er makes it, to make room for a new crop, and thus successive crops are 
 harvested and reproduced. , 
 
 On this continent for the present, and for some time to come still 
 owing to our peculiar economic and populational conditions our na- 
 tional forest resources will be to a great extent merely exploited ; the lum- 
 berman will continue, for some time, to treat his forest property as an ob- 
 ject of speculation, possibly treating it more carefully. The forester, who 
 looks at the forest as an investment, to be perpetuated and renewed forever, 
 comes when civilized permanency, stability of conditions warrants it, when 
 he can make his home in the woods. 
 
 The first step towards making his business possible is adequate protec- 
 tion of forest properties against fires, a subject of legislation and morals. 
 The next step is the possibility of a more thorough utilization of what we 
 cut, and care in not unnecessarily destroying young growth, a matter de- 
 pending on the development of cheap means of transportation and distribu- 
 tion of population. 
 
 Finally, the application of the skill of the forester is called for, such as 
 you propose to educate in this institution.
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 METHODS OF BUSINESS CONDUCT- 
 FOREST ECONOMY. 
 
 As in every technical industry concerned in production, so in forestry 
 the methods of the technical art are distinct from the methods of the busi- 
 ness conduct. "Silviculture" represents the technical art of forestry; 
 while under the comprehensive term "forest economy" we may group all 
 that knowledge and practice which is necessary for the proper conduct of 
 the business of forestry. 
 
 Besides the purely technical care in managing the productive forces 
 of nature to secure the best attainable production of material, best in both 
 quantity and quality the highest gross yield there must be exercised a 
 managerial care to secure the most favorable relations of expenditure and 
 income the highest net yield, a surplus of cash results without which the 
 industry would be purposeless from the standpoint of private enterprise 
 and investment. Moreover, an orderly conduct and systematic procedure 
 to secure this revenue is necessary. 
 
 It is possible to practice the art of silviculture incidentally, as the, 
 farmer does, or can do, on his wood lot, without special business organiza- 
 tion and elaborate planning, the owner harvesting and reproducing and 
 tending his crop whenever needful ; but the case is different if forest grow- 
 ing is to be carried on as a business by itself with a view to continued and 
 regular procedure, to continued and regular revenue; in that case more; 
 elaborate planning becomes necessary. 
 
 The one peculiarity which distinguishes the forestry business from. 
 every other business is the time element. The forester cannot harvest an- 
 nually what has actually grown (the current increment) ; the forest crop, 
 as we have seen, must accumulate the accretions of many years before it 
 becomes mature, i.e., of sufficient size to be useful ; hence, unless special 
 provisions are made in the management of a forest property, the crop and 
 the revenue would mature and be harvested periodically only, and that in 
 long periods ; from twenty to a hundred years and more would elapse from 
 the sowing to the reaping. 
 
 The farmer may be satisfied to practise on his wood lot attached to his 
 farming business what is technically called an "intermittent" management, 
 harvesting and reproducing from time to time without attempting to se- 
 cure regular annual returns. But when forestry is to be practised as an 
 independent industry, it becomes desirable, as in any large mercantile es-
 
 60 
 
 tablishment, to plan, organize, and manage the business so as to secure, 
 continuously and systematically, a regular annual income nearly equal or 
 increasing year by year. 
 
 The lumberman or forest exploiter also plans and organizes his busi- 
 ness for annual returns, not, however, to be derived continuously from the 
 same ground ; he seeks a new field, he changes his location as soon as he 
 has exhausted the accumulated stores of his forest property, which he then 
 abandons and devotes to other purposes than wood-cropping. 
 
 The forester's business is based upon the conception of what is techni- 
 cally called the "sustained yield," a continued systematic use of the same 
 property for wood-crops, the best and largest possible ; this is secured by 
 proper attention to silviculture, reproducing systematically the harvested 
 crop. Finally, when the industry is fully established, he is annually to de- 
 rive this "sustained yield" as far as practicable in equal or nearly equal 
 amounts forever, under an "annual sustained yield management." This 
 is secured by means of forest regulation, the principal branch of forest 
 economy, which comprises the methods of regulating the conduct of the 
 business so as to secure finally the ideal of the forester a forest so ar- 
 ranged that annually, forever, the samt amount of wood product, namely, 
 that which grows annually on all his acres, may be harvested in the most 
 profitable form. 
 
 As in every business, there is an ideal, a standard in conduct and con- 
 dition, which the manager more or less consciously recognizes and follows, 
 or seeks to establish, yet, on account of uncontrollable circumstances can 
 never quite attain, so is the ideal of the forester never quite attainable, al- 
 though it is his obligation to attempt and approach it as far as practicable. 
 
 The ideal conduct of the management "for annual sustained yield" is 
 possible only under the ideal condition, which the forester recognizes in the 
 "normal forest," the standard by which he measures his actual forest and 
 to which he desires, as nearly and as quickly as circumstances permit, to 
 bring his actual forest. The latter will usually be found abnormal in some 
 one direction, or in several directions, and hence makes the ideal conduct 
 impossible. The object of forest regulation, then, is to prepare for the 
 change of an abnormal forest into a normal forest. 
 
 In simplest terms, the normal forest is a forest in such condition that 
 it is possible to harvest annually forever the best attainable product ; or to 
 secure continuously the largest possible revenue. 
 
 While we have assumed, for the sake of simplicity of conception that 
 the stands of different age, the age classes, are separate in area the one 
 from the other, it is readily conceivable that all, or some of them, may be 
 mixed together, on the same area, as in the selection forest, where all age 
 classes, from the seedling to the matured timber, are mingled ; and if there 
 are enough trees in gradation from the older to the younger, allowing for 
 losses, so that the younger age class can replace in amount the older as it is
 
 removed or is growing out of its class, we would have arrived at normal 
 condition for the selection forest. 
 
 In the actual forest some one condition or all conditions will usually 
 be found abnormal. The normal accretion may be deficient, because the 
 area is not fully stocked or the timber is past its prime, old timber growing 
 at an inferior rate, or rot off-setting increment. The age classes are usual- 
 ly not present in proper gradation and amount ; some of them are probably 
 entirely lacking, others are in excess, either too many stands of older or 
 of younger timber, so that even if the normal stock of wood in amount be 
 on hand, it may be in abnormal distribution. 
 
 Trie normal accretion can, of course, be established only by silvicultur- 
 al methods. The other two conditions are attained or approached by regu- 
 lating the felling budget in area and amount, so that gradually the age 
 classes and the normal stock are established. 
 
 The simplest method would be to divide the forest into as many areas 
 as there are years or periods in the rotation, and cut one, or the equivalent 
 in volume, every year or during every period, when after one rotation the 
 age classes are established. If proper attention has been given to the re- 
 production and to keeping the reproduced areas fully stocked, the normal 
 conditions are attained after the forest has been once cut over, i.e., during 
 the first rotation. But this would burden the present generation with the 
 entire cost of securing the normality ; at the same time necessitating not 
 only unequal felling budgets, as better or poorer stands are cut, but also 
 requiring that the harvest of timber past its prime be deferred, if the forest 
 is largely composed of old age classes, or that immature timber be cut pre- 
 maturely if young age classes predominate in either case a financial loss. 
 Indeed, the greatest practical difficulty which confronts the forest regulator 
 is found in gauging the sacrifices which the present must make for the sake 
 of the future. 
 
 Altogether, the principle of the "owner's interest" must be the guiding 
 one in the management of any property ; and it would first have to be de- 
 monstrated that a sustained yield management, either annual or intermit- 
 tent, and sacrifices of revenue in the present for the sake of a future im- 
 proved revenue are in his interest. For it must always be remembered that 
 financially forestry means foregoing present revenue or incurring present 
 expenditure for the sake of future revenue; it involves gauging present 
 and future advantages, and the time element, as we have seen, is the prom- 
 inent element in its finance calculations. 
 
 Before an annual sustained yield management will appear profitable 
 in Canada, many changes in economic conditions will have to take place, 
 among which we may single out reduction of danger from fire ; opportun- 
 ity for utilizing inferior material : increase in wood prices by reduction of 
 the natural supplies on which no cost of production need be charged; the 
 development of desire for permanent investments instead of speculative
 
 62 
 
 ones ; an extension of government functions, leading to the practice of for- 
 estry by governments on a large scale. 
 
 Meanwhile, all that can be expected from private forest owners is that 
 they may practise more conservative and careful logging of the natural 
 woods, avoiding unnecessary waste, and as far as possible paying attention 
 to silviculture, the reproduction of the crop, leaving to the future the at- 
 tempt to organize a sustained yield management. Only governments and 
 perpetual corporations or large capitalists can afford to make the sacrifices 
 which are necessary to prepare now for such a management. 
 
 In order to secure the data upon which the felling budget may be reg- 
 ulated, a forest survey is necessary, which will embrace not only an area 
 and topographic (geometric) survey, serving for purposes of subdivision, 
 description and orderly management, but also an ascertainment of the stock 
 on hand in the various parts of the property, and of the rate of accretion at 
 which the different stands are growing. 
 
 After having determined upon the general policy of management, with 
 due consideration of the owner's interests and of market conditions, gener- 
 al and local ; and after having decided upon the silvicultural policy, includ- 
 ing choice of leading species in the crop for which the forest is to be main- 
 tained, and silvicultural method of treatment, as coppice or timber forest, 
 under clearing system or gradual removal or selection system the most 
 important and difficult question to be solved is that of the rotation, the time 
 which is to elapse between reproduction and harvest, or the normal felling 
 age, that is, the age, or, so far as age is in relation to size, the diameter, to 
 which it is desirable to let the trees grow before harvesting them. 
 
 There is no maturity of a forest crop as we know it in agricultural 
 crops ; wood does not ripen naturally, and trees do not even die a natural 
 death at a given period, but death is with them a gradual process of decay, 
 the result of exterior damage, of insect and fungus attacks ; trees actually 
 die by inches in most cases, and it may take hundreds of years before the 
 trunk is so weakened that its own weight or a wind-storm may lay it low. 
 
 The question of ripeness, or the proper felling age, wherever forest' 
 growth is an object not of mere pleasure, as in a luxury forest, must be de- 
 termined by economic considerations. 
 
 There is sense in the proposition that the felling age be determined by 
 a diameter limit below which timber is to be considered immature ; in fact, 
 the forester bases his calculations of the rotation in part, at least, upon size 
 of crop. But the proposition, frequently advocated, to restrict a forest 
 owner to an arbitrary diameter limit, below which he is not to cut his crops, 
 anywhere and everywhere, is not only unsound as an exercise of state pol- 
 icy, but also mistakes the economic questions involved in the determination 
 of that limit, and entirely misjudges the value of the limitation as far as 
 silvicultural results, the perpetuation of a valuable forest, are concerned. 
 In fact, from this last and most important point of view it might be wiser,
 
 63 
 
 under certain conditions, to impose upon the owner the cutting out of ev- 
 erything below a given diameter. For, as we have seen, in nature's mixed 
 forest, valuable timber and weed trees are growing side by side, the dia- 
 meter restriction indiscriminately applied might prevent the removal of the 
 objectionable portion, the weed growth, putting a premium on the decima- 
 tion of the more valuable portion. Without silviculture, i.e., attention to 
 systematic reproduction, a diameter restriction is of little value. With sil- 
 viculture it is not necessary, for even the entire removal of the whole, crop- 
 denudation, and its replacement by planting or sowing, would accomplish 
 the object sought, namely, the continuity of the forest, and in many cases 
 might be preferable to other methods. 
 
 In other words, the determination of the rotation or felling age, or of 
 the felling size, is largely a matter of financial calculation. This calcula- 
 tion is, however, influenced by silvicultural and technical, as well as purely, 
 financial, considerations. 
 
 An estimation of value requires numerous mathematical calculations. 
 The forester must know the current accretion or increment of each year 
 and from this determine the average accretion, that is, an average of sever- 
 al current accretions. The value of a stand depends upon the size as well 
 as the volume and quantity among other things. 
 
 The forester must in a large way be a prophet. He must forecast 
 what wood will have the largest sale in the future and also predict if the 
 price will increase at all. The only basis upon which he can judge is the 
 history of the past and he will be tolerably correct unless some unforseen 
 accident occurs. In Prussia for 65 years back the prices of wood have ad- 
 vanced l*/2 per cent, per annum. In Canada White Pine, sold for 4^-5*^ 
 cents per cubic foot 50 years ago, whereas in 1893 it sold for 16-42 cents 
 per cubic foot and to-day commands 60 cents' per cubic foot. This is a 
 very large advance. 
 
 Besides capital and time there must be present an economic spirit such 
 as no other business requires. The product can be differentiated from the 
 capital, but forest management is dangerous in private hands especially 
 with little capital behind it. Hence, from the standpoint of the future this 
 is a business which rather belongs to the state or a persistent corporation. 
 In Germany, forestry has been practised for over a hundred years, and the 
 statistics of the German states will show the financial results. 
 
 Let us take a glimpse at the results of forest management in Saxony 
 from a business point of view : 
 
 1824-33 1854-63 1884-93 
 
 Gross Revenue.. $1.75 per acre $3.74 per acre $6.67 per acre 
 Expenditure.... 80 " 1.15 
 
 Net Revenue.... 95 " ,2.59 4.37 
 
 Saxony owns 430,000 acres, so by multiplying 430,000 by 4.37 we can 
 find her net revenue from forests alone. Besides this we find the felling
 
 64 
 
 budget to be an average of 60 cubic feet per acre in the first period, 70 in 
 the second, and 90 in the third, and while 17 per cent, of total cut was ser- 
 viceable for lumber in the first period, 79 per cent, was serviceable in the 
 last. These figures show what forestry when carried on properly can do 
 for a country. 
 
 Prussia can show similar statistics, and we find that in this State 
 the revenue has also risen in direct proportion to the expenditure, and con- 
 sequent better management. There is no better investment to be had. 
 
 In Germany often the towns or villages own forests, when to be a 
 citizen, means securing a dividend instead of paying taxes.
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WOOD. 
 
 The forester's business is not so much to produce trees, or even for- 
 ests, but the chief material which they furnish, wood ; and not only wood 
 merely, but wood of certain quality, fit for use in the arts. He must, there- 
 fore, not only be able to recognize the different woods and know their qual- 
 ities and their applicability for various uses, but more ! he must know how 
 differences in quality are produced and apply that knowledge in the produc- 
 tion of his crop. All the technical qualities weight, hardness, strength, ap- 
 pearance, and even color to some extent, and the behavior of wood can be 
 more or less directly traced to their variable structure the varying com- 
 bination of the cells, with thinner and thicker walls, larger and smaller 
 lumina (openings), and cell systems, which make the wood. 
 
 Without going into details and microscopical distinction, a mere mi- 
 croscopic inspection with the magnifying glass of the gross features re- 
 veals much of the characteristics of the wood. A cross section 
 (across the bole) serves the purpose best although tangential sections 
 (parallel to the central axis) and radical sections (in direction of radius of 
 the cross secton) reveal also special features. 
 
 Comparing cross sections of our northern trees of various kind, we 
 find that they can be classified in three classes differing clearly in appear- 
 ance of structure. The distinction is found by examining each annual ring 
 in itself, and the change from one ring to the other. 
 
 This examination reveals that in each case there are two zones defined 
 in the ring of the year's growth, in most cases recognizable by color dis- 
 tinctions, namely the lighter colored interior part the spring-wood, so- 
 called because it is the first wood formed in spring and the summer-wood, 
 the last wood formed in the season. The former is lighter colored, because 
 formed of thin-walled cells with wide lumina, forming a loose, open struc- 
 ture, while the latter is dark colored, because of thick-walled cells with 
 small lumina, which reflect the light differently, forming a dense, compact 
 structure. The wide-lumened cells or cell fusions may become so conspic- 
 uous that they appear like larger or smaller pores cut-through "vessels" 
 and according to whether such pores occur, whether they are<iound dis- 
 tributed more or less evenly throughout the annual ring or whether they 
 are more or less distinctly grouped in the spring-wood, the distinction is 
 made into non-porous, diffuse porous, and ring porous woods. 
 
 The ring porous woods, like the oaks, ash, elm, concentrate their large- 
 lumened vessels or "pores" into the spring-wood so that each ring is prom-
 
 [66 
 
 inently visible. These woods are mostly the hard woods of the broad-leaf 
 trees, their compact summer-wood being the hard part. The diffuse-por- 
 ous woods, which have their vessels and pores of smaller size but larger 
 number, more or less evenly distributed, are mostly the soft wood like pop- 
 lar, aspen, tulip tree; the summer-wood being also porous, and only the last 
 one or few layers of cells being made up of thick-walled, small-lumened,, 
 compressed cells, making distinction of the annual ring difficult. The con- 
 'ifers represent the non-porous woods, that is to say, they have no pro- 
 nounced large-lumened vessels or "pores." Their structure from begin- 
 ning to end is the most simple and uniform. The only difference between 
 summer- wood and spring- wood is that the former has the cells (or tra- 
 cheids, so-called ) thicker-walled and compressed in radial direction. Here, 
 too, we will find soft and hard woods. The hard woods being represented 
 by the Yellow pines and the Douglas fir, which form many summer-wood 
 cells the harder, dark-colored part of the annual ring while others, like 
 the White pines, cedars, etc., have only a few such compressed summer- 
 wood cells, the annual ring being less pronounced. 
 
 The varying distribution of large and small pores in the broad-leaf 
 trees permit not only further distinction of genera and species, but also 
 judgment of qualities. It stands to reason that a larger percentage of the 
 thick-walled elements, ceteris paribns, means heavier, stronger wood, so 
 that by mere physical inspection at least a comparative judgment of the 
 value of wood may be formed. 
 
 Since according to species the proportion of summer-wood and spring- 
 wood varies with the rapidity of growth (width of ring) and since the for- 
 ester can make trees grow faster or slower, he has it partially in his hand 
 to produce difference in quality. 
 
 Another feature of the structure which are both used for purposes of 
 identification and exercise an influence on technical qualities, are the so- 
 called medullary or pith rays. While most cell tissues and wood fibres lie 
 with their longest diameter in the direction of the length or axis of the tree 
 or branch, the pith rays, aggregates of cells, lie with their greater diameter 
 in radial direction interrupting the straight course of the wood fibre. They 
 are, therefore, points of weakness. On the cross section they appear as 
 radial lines, finer or broader, sometimes so fine, as in the conifers, as to be 
 hardly distinguishible, again so broad, as in the sycamore and the oak, as to 
 form a most prominent feature of the structure. It is especially in the rad- 
 ial and tangential cuts, which are the ones mostly exhibited in structures, 
 that the pith rays play a role, appearing as different colored plates in the 
 quarter-sawed maple, beech or oak, and as narrow indentations on the tan- 
 gential cut. The absence or rather scanty development of pith rays in con- 
 ifers is one of the reasons of the uniform quality and behavior in shrinking 
 of these woods, while the difficulty in seasoning oak without checks is 
 largely due to the presence of many highly developed pith rays.
 
 67 
 
 In seasoning, the wood loses the water stored up in it ; as it evaporates 
 from the cell wall on the outside it is supplied from the cell-lumen on the 
 inside no shrinking of cell-walls takes place until the water of the lumen 
 is exhausted and then the cell-wall must give up its water, the molecules 
 composing the cell walls draw closer with the water molecules removed by 
 the dry air the cell or cell-tissues shrink. The thicker cell-walls of the 
 summer-wood contain of course the most water and hence shrink also more 
 than the spring-wood cells. Hence, the ring-porous woods, like the oak, 
 shrink more unevenly, and are liable to warping and checking. The pith 
 ray cells lying in different directions also shrink in different direction more, 
 and other source of season checks is due to them. 
 
 While then the complicated structure of the ring-porous woods fur- 
 nishes greater strength structurally, it also imposes greater care in their 
 handling. 
 
 In general, the heavier wood is also the stronger, and the quality of 
 the wood, with trees of pronounced summerwood zones, varies 
 from the centre of the tree to the periphery, according to the 
 rapidity of its growth. Since, as a rule, the rate of growth in diam- 
 eter is greatest between the 40th and 80th year, the heaviest and strongest 
 wood would lie in that part of the tree. And as the wood does not change 
 in structure it was also strongest when it was still on the outside of the 
 tree, i.e., when it was "sap-wood." In old age, to be sure, the tree growing! 
 slowly makes poorer wood and hence in old trees the sap-wood, not because 
 it is sap-wood, but because it is old wood, is weaker.
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF 
 FOREST POLICY. 
 
 . The forest cover is of more importance to the household of a nation 
 than many other of its resources, it bears a peculiar relation to national 
 prosperity, and its management for continuity offers various unique and 
 peculiar aspects, which call for special active interest by the community at 
 large and by its representative, the state. 
 
 Briefly summarizing the arguments for such special interest and exer- 
 cise of governmental activity, we recall that the forest is a natural resource 
 which answers simultaneously three purposes of civilized society ; it fur- 
 nishes directly materials used in very large quantities and almost as needful 
 as food ; it forms a soil cover which influences, directly and indirectly, un- 
 der its own cover and at a distance, conditions of waterflow, of soil, and of 
 local climate ; it has, in addition, an aesthetic value, furnishing pleasure and 
 recreation and benefitting health. 
 
 The exploitation of this resource for private gain is apt to lead to its 
 deterioration or eventual destruction, especially in a country where popula- 
 tion is relatively small and unevenly distributed, when only the best kinds 
 and the best cuts can be profitably marketed. Hence, since profit is the ob- 
 ject of private enterprise, exploitation under such conditions must be by ne- 
 cessity wasteful. By the removal of the useful kinds and of the desirable 
 individuals, leaving the ground to be occupied by tree weeds and runts, the 
 reproduction of the desirable and useful is prevented, and since the forest, 
 by changing its composition and quality is deteriorated in value, the future 
 is injured as far as material interests are concerned. 
 
 Since, with the removal of marketable timber, the interest of the individ- 
 ual in the forest is gone, it is naturally neglected, and conflagrations which 
 follow the wasteful exploitation, with the accumulated debris left in the 
 woods, kill or damage, not only the remaining old timber, but more espec- 
 ially all the young growth. Even the soil itself, often formed only by the 
 mould from the decay of leaves and litter accumulated through centuries. 
 is destroyed, and thus, not only the practicability,, but the possibility, of res- 
 toration is frustrated. 
 
 In many localities the consequences of such destruction are felt in de- 
 ter'oration of climatic conditions, and in uneven waterflow, floods and 
 droughts being exaggerated ; in this way damage is inflicted on portions of 
 the community far removed from its cause and unable to protect them-
 
 69 
 
 selves. The private individual can hardly be expected to appreciate these 
 distant interests of his own motion in the management of his forest proper- 
 ty ; hence the state must guard them. 
 
 The desire to get the largest present profit from his labor, which is the 
 only incentive of private enterprise, will be also a constant incentive to cur- 
 tail the wood capital necessary for a sustained yield management, and to let 
 the future take care of itself. 
 
 The interest in the future lies with the state ; the state must interfere, 
 wherever the interests of the future clearly demand it. 
 
 The state is to protect the broad interests of the many in the commun- 
 ity, against the inconsiderate use of property by the few ; and special stress 
 is to be laid upon the necessity of including the interests of the future com- 
 munity in this consideration, calling for the exercise of providential func- 
 tions on the part of the state. 
 
 There is, however, one great generic difference between the forestry 
 business ana an otner productive industries, which places it after all on a 
 different footing as far as state interest is concerned ; it is the time element, 
 which we have again and again accentuated, and which brings with it con- 
 sequences not experienced in any other business. 
 
 The result of private activity which is supposed to come from self-inter- 
 est is closely connected with the working of the well-known economic law 
 of supply and demand which regulates the efforts of the producer. This 
 law and the self-interest can be trusted to bring about in most cases a pro- 
 per balance rapidly, but in the forest business this balance works sluggish- 
 ly ; before a shortage in supplies is discovered and appreciated, stimulating 
 to productive effort, years will have elapsed, years which are needed to pre- 
 pare for a supply to become available in a distant future. How difficult it 
 is to get conditions of forest supplies recognized and appreciated, we in the 
 United States have experienced in regard to our White Pine supply. 
 
 We must, then, admit that, even with regard to supply forests, the 
 position of the state may be properly a different one from that which it 
 would be proper and expedient to take toward other industrial activities. 
 
 When, in addition to the more material function, the immaterial bene- 
 fits of a forest cover enter into the question or become paramount, there 
 can be no doubt that both principle and expediency call for timely exercise 
 of state activity. The so-called protection forests, therefore, which by vir- 
 tue of their location on steep mountain slopes or on sand dunes, or wher- 
 ever their influence on soil conditions, waterflow, and climatic factors can 
 be shown to be superior to their natura^ value, must claim a more intimate 
 and direct attention by the state. 
 
 There are three different ways in which the state can assert its author- 
 ity and carry out its obligations in protecting the interests of the commun- 
 ity at large and of the future against the ill-advised use of property by pri- 
 vate owners : namely, by persuasive, ameliorative, or promotive measures,
 
 70 
 
 exercising mainly its (1) educational functions; by restrictive measures or 
 indirect control, exercising (2) police functions; and by direct control, i.e., 
 (oj ownership and management by its own agents. 
 
 First, we have to discuss educational measures, taxation and tariff du- 
 ties, bounties, and other aids in promotion of private industry. 
 
 The educational function of the state is now recognized as one of the 
 most prominent and beneficial in all civilized nations, although the degree 
 and generality of its application still vary. 
 
 We believe that finally, in each country, it will be considered a part of 
 proper forest policy for some public institution of learning to furnish 
 instruction in forestry. 
 
 The only danger is that multiplication in number rather than increase 
 in efficiency of a few such institutions will be the rule of the day, when the 
 fever sets in. 
 
 In the European forestry literature a lively discussion has continued 
 for years as to whether the higher education in forestry should be given at 
 separate special academies or lorestry schools, or whether these should be 
 connected with universities. There are advantages and disadvantages in 
 either arrangement ; but the better facilities which can be had at a univer- 
 sity, with its concentrated intellectual and laboratory apparatus, give the 
 preference to the latter. 
 
 Besides the establishment of schools, there are other means open for 
 the state to exercise its educational functions. The endowment of scholar- 
 ships, especially travelling scholarships, has been of greatest value in in- 
 creasing capacity and intelligence for promoting communal interests. 
 
 Next, no more efficient means of education in practical arts which, 
 like forestry and agriculture, rely still largely on empirics, can be devised 
 than the establishment of experiment stations. 
 
 If, as has been practically conceded, experimentation in agricultural 
 lines is best done by state institutions, this is still more true in forestry 
 lines, on account of the time element involved in most forestry experiments. 
 In agriculture the answer to an enquiry may be often secured in inexpens- 
 ive ways, and may be given in one season ; while in forestry, years of pa- 
 tient waiting and observation, wholesale methods of measurements, large 
 areas, and a large number of cases, are required to permit generalization. 
 
 The advantage of connecting such experiment stations with institu- 
 tions of learning needs hardly an argument ; the mutual increase of educa- 
 tional facilities and opportunities is patent. These educational means can, 
 of course, be extended by proper methods of publication of results, by or- 
 ganization of meetings for their discussion, by so-called university exten- 
 sion, and, finally, by the promotion of associations which have for their ob- 
 ject the increase of application of knowledge in the actual forestry prac- 
 tice. Such associations give opportunity of impressing and driving home
 
 71 
 
 what is desirable in practice, and also, of finding out what are the needs of 
 the private owner, and what the state should do to further his interests. 
 
 A more direct and far-reaching influence upon private activity, still of 
 an educational character, is properly exercised by the state in securing and 
 publishing statistical information. 
 
 In the well ordered state the soils most fit for agriculture should be 
 devoted to systematic tooa production, Dut just so snoulu tiie non-agricul- 
 tural soils, me aosolute lorest soils, be devoted to the systematic production 
 01 wood-crops ; moreover, as we nave seen, tne lorest in certain situations, 
 exercises a potent influence on cultural conditions. Hence the knowledge 
 01 tne extent 01 lorest area 01 a country is Dy itsen meaningless ; tne cnar- 
 acter 01 tne son me lorest occupies, us topograpmcal location, and its rela- 
 tion to tne Hydrography 01 tlie country, must oe Known to permit an esti- 
 mate 01 cultural conditions, to prognosticate iiKeiy cnange in area and tne 
 desirability 01 mterierence m its use. 
 
 To get an idea 01 the amount and value, present and prospective, 01' 
 the existing resource, mere must DC known tne composition, i.e., relative 
 occurrence or merchantable kinds and conditions as to density, age, and 
 character ot growth, damage by nre, etc., and, most dirncult of all to ascer- 
 tain, conditions and stages of development ot the young crop. 
 
 in addition to these educational methods which incite private activity 
 in the right direction by indirect means, namely, by increase of knowledge, 
 mere are more direct ameliorative or promotive measures to be found in 
 bounties which are given to aid private endeavor in the pursuit of private 
 industry. 
 
 These may take the form of assisting by money gifts, by furnishing 
 plant material, by giving land as in our timber claim planting, by making 
 working plans or otherwise specifically assisting in private forest manage- 
 ment beyond the gift of general information, and finally by tax release and 
 tariff duties. 
 
 Within the last few years the Federal Government of the United 
 States has inaugurated through the Forestry Bureau of the Department of 
 Agriculture another method of encouragement which is also practised in 
 the old countries, namely, to give to private owners specific advice as to the 
 management of forest properties, the government bearing the larger share 
 of the expense of securing the data for these so-called working plans. But 
 for the educational feature involved, this would be a violation of our prin- 
 ciple that the state should not do for the private citizen what he could do 
 for himself. If, however, the benefit to be expected for the community at 
 large is thereby secured, expediency would lend countenance to such a 
 method. The probability, however, is that in the absence of an obligation 
 to follow the working plan, and in the absence of technical supervision in 
 its execution, the results will be hardly commensurate.
 
 72 
 
 The one promotive action of the state, which is pre-eminently required 
 to establish a proper forest policy, the propriety of which cannot be ques- 
 tioned for a moment, and which arises from the primary function of the 
 state, its police Junction, is to aliord protection to forest property, at least 
 equal to that afforded to any other property and adequate to the peculiari- 
 ties and needs of such forest property. 
 
 Such protection is the unquestioned right of the forest owner, and 
 without it he cannot be expected to maintain a "sustained yield" manage- 
 ment which requires maintainence of a large wood capital subject to depre- 
 dations and to destruction by fires unless properly guarded. 
 
 it is not sufficient for the state to legislate, but, at least wherever broad 
 communal interests are at stake, it must provide the machinery to carry out 
 this legislation. 
 
 The principles most needful to keep in view when formulating legisla- 
 tion for protection against forest fires are : 
 
 (1). A well-organized machinery for the enforcement of the laws 
 must be provided, in which the state must be prominently represented, since 
 the damage done by forest fires extends in many cases far beyond immed- 
 iate private or personal loss. 
 
 (2). Responsibility for the execution of the law must be clearly de- 
 fined, and must ultimately rest upon one person, an officer of the state ; but 
 every facility for ready prosecution of offenders must be at command of 
 the responsible officer. 
 
 (3). JN one but paid officials can be expected to do efficient service, 
 and financial responsibility in all directions must be recognized as alone 
 productive of care in the performance of duties, as well as in obedience to 
 regulations. 
 
 (4). Recognition of common interest in the protection of this kind of 
 property can come only by a reasonable distribution of financial liability for 
 loss between the state and local community and the owners themselves. 
 
 Generally speaking, restrictions and supervision of private forest in- 
 dustry have proved themselves mostly undesirable and impracticable ; their 
 only justification would appear when protection of neighboring properties 
 or of general communal interests demonstrably require them. 
 
 The recognition of the fact that the removal of the protecting forest 
 cover may give rise to shifting sand and sand dunes, which may encroach 
 and despoil larger areas beyond, is sufficient call for the exercise of the 
 police functions of the state to prevent such damage, if we admit the provi- 
 dential character of such functions. 
 
 The experience that the deforestation or even bad management of the 
 forest cover, forest devastation, on mountain tops and hills, leads to excess- 
 ive water stages, to destructive floods, filling channels, thereby impeding 
 navigation and sifting agricultural soils, damaging neighboring or distant 
 interests, again makes the exercise of the police function of the state, in a
 
 73 
 
 wider sense in which I have defined it, necessary in order to prevent the 
 consequences of mismanagement of the protective forest cover in such par- 
 ticular situations. 
 
 The sugar planter in Louisiana, whose crop is endangered or destroy- 
 ed by overflows due to causes a thousand miles away, has a right to protec- 
 tion through the government. 
 
 Finally, however, it will be found that control and supervision of pri- 
 vate property is an unsatisfactory, expensive, and only partially effective 
 method of securing conservative forest management, where the necessity 
 of maintaining a forest growth may exist and the financial margin that can 
 be had from it is but small. Experience in the old countries has shown 
 that, in spite of the much more perfect machinery for enforcing laws, and 
 in spite of the much more ready disposition to submit to laws, than we are 
 accustomed to see in this country, the attempts to control private property 
 have been largely without the desired result. 
 
 It then becomes preferable for the community to own and manage such 
 forest areas. 
 
 Such ownership may rest either in the state or else in the country, the. 
 town, or other political subdivision which seems most nearly interested in 
 the maintenance of the protective cover. To obtain possession, if it cannot 
 be had by purchase, the necessity of exercising eminent domain is now re- 
 cognized in most civilized states where public objects, public safety, or pub- 
 lic utility require it ; usually, however, the objects for which this power may 
 be called into requisition are definitely stated by law. 
 
 Finally, when the ideal, the socialistic, co-operative, most highly or- 
 ganized state will have developed, the policy will be that the community 
 shall own or control and devote to forest crops all the poorest sioils and 
 sites, leaving only the agricultural soils and pastures to private enterprise.
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 THE FORESTER, AN ENGINEER. 
 
 The object of this lecture is to show the variety of directions in which 
 the forest engineer must expend his energies. The harvesting and market- 
 ing of the wood crop requires the services of men with engineering educa- 
 tion and ability, and they are best educated where practical sciences and en- 
 gineering are taught. 
 
 There is hardly any business concerned in the manufacture or produc- 
 tion of materials which does not require some knowledge on the part of the 
 producer as to how to adapt means to ends, how to use mechanical and 
 physical properties of matter in construction and locomotion ; and in apply- 
 ing this he fulfills the definition of an engineer. The forester's business is 
 one in which the need of engineering gumption and knowledge appears in 
 various directions so prominently that he can without impropriety be called 
 a specialized engineer, and in fact the title of "Forest Engineer" is given to 
 the graduates of forestry schools in several countries. 
 
 The one thing in which the forestry business differs from all other 
 business is the long-time element, for it takes a hundred years and more to 
 grow trees fit for the use of the engineer, the builder and the architect ; 
 hence the dollar spent now in its first start must come back with compound 
 interest a hundred years hence. This long-time element entails careful 
 planning, entails economy and prevision. Hence, all the forester does 
 must be done with permanency in view. And here again the lumberman 
 and forester differ in objects, and therefore in methods; the one treats his 
 property as a speculation, a temporary occupancy ; the other treats it as an 
 investment ; permanent management, continuity of occupancy, is the basis 
 of his actions. 
 
 The first step in taking hold of a forest property is, therefore, a survey 
 of the same, not only of its boundaries, but of its topography and character, 
 as well as of its contents. Surveying, both line and topographical survey- 
 ing, are requisites of a competent forester. While such a first survey 
 might be made by regular surveyors, as the work of the forest manager 
 progresses and needs recording on the maps, it will be found useful if he 
 can do his own surveying, and thereby become competent also to interpret 
 readily topographic maps. Such surveys, being not for general map pur- 
 poses but with engineering work in view, must be made with more care 
 and on a larger scale than is usual wth such field maps as, for instance, 
 those of a Geological Survey.
 
 75 
 
 Subdivision is necessary for more easy systematic procedure. Fire- 
 lanes, or cleared strips for protection against fire, must be kept clean. 
 
 The next direction in which engineering knowledge is required is in 
 the locating and laying out and constructing of roads and other permanent 
 means of transportation, for to be accessible in all its parts is finally of 
 greatest importance in managing a property for permanency. In our un- 
 developed conditions, especially in the absence of local markets, we may 
 still be satisfied with a minimum of permanent road system, substituting 
 temporary roads and means of transportation, and leaving to future gener- 
 ations their further development ; but the plans should be made for per- 
 manency from the start, even if their execution is delayed. Cheap but ef- 
 ficient road building and railroad building, I am afraid, is a matter with 
 which even few engineers are well acquainted ; it is a subject in which the 
 
 By permission, Society of Western Engineers. 
 
 forester is intensely interested. Building of bridges in a cheap and effect- 
 ive way is part of the forest engineer's work. These means of transporta- 
 tion are, of course, needed to remove the harvest, and to handle this bulky 
 material cheaply requires no mean engineering skill. 
 
 The first task of the forester, then, in beginning the management of a 
 forest property is to provide cheap and efficient means of transportation for 
 the removal of a bulky crop, of which much is inferior, and if possible to so 
 arrange this harvest that it may be made gradually and continually, log- 
 ging over the same area for a number of years. 
 
 Here, in the harvest, logger and forester have similar, yet not identical 
 interests, for the logger lacks the requirement of logging over the same 
 area gradually and continually, of having to remove cordwood, weeds and
 
 LUMBERING RAILWAY 
 
 BURNT PINES, CARSON LAKE, C. A. R.. RENFREW CO. 
 
 Photo by Houghton W. Wilson.
 
 77 
 
 debris, of caring for the young aftergrowth. Nevertheless, the forester 
 must naturally do much the same as the lumberman, and utilize the engi- 
 neering skill which has been developed in the logging business. 
 
 According to the size and location of his property and the working 
 capital at his disposal, he will resort to old fashioned methods of logging 
 skidding the logs by horses or mules to skidways, and hauling them on 
 wagons or with sleds on ice roads to the landings ; or using lumber slides 
 and water flumes to bring the material either to rivers, which he may have 
 to dam and regulate in their course in order to float and drive the soft- 
 woods, or to rail if hardwoods ; or else he may benefit from the develop- 
 ment of steam logging devices in connection with steam railroads. 
 
 DAM AND TIMBER SLIDE, McGILLlVRAY LAKE, COULONGE. QUE 
 
 Photo by Houghton W. Willson. 
 
 Whether the transportation is by rail or water, or by sled or wagon, 
 the locating of the roads is one of the most important functions of the log- 
 ger. Be it that temporary winter roads or permanent summer roads are to 
 be used, a well planned system of main roads and branches must be located. 
 So important, for financial reasons, is the question of road location consid- 
 ered in German forests, that a permanent road system forms most import- 
 ant initial investment on our undeveloped lands the only plan is tempor- 
 ary roads.
 
 78 
 
 In logging operations, as now conducted, engineering structures and 
 operations are constantly employed. 
 
 Even the felling of such trees as the great western pines is a piece of 
 engineering requiring the greatest skill and judgment. The long shaft 
 must fall so as to clear the surrounding trees, and not destroy its own value 
 and that of others by crushing or lodging. Skidding is now in some forests 
 done by an engine and wire rope. First successfully applied in the cypress 
 swamps of the South, then on the mountains of the Pacific Coast with the 
 ponderous pines and firs, these steam skidding methods promise to super- 
 cede the old-fashioned horse and mule wherever large enough masses, es- 
 pecially of hardwoods, are to be lumbered, and where railroads can be pro- 
 fitably employed to bring the log harvest from the forest to the mill. 
 
 TIMBER SLIDE, HIGH FALLS, MADAWASKA. 
 
 Photo by Houghton W. Wilson. 
 
 The present steam-skidding system, first suggested by Mr. J. H. Dick- 
 inson, relies upon a stationary hoisting engine, and brings the logs from 
 shorter or longer dstances to the cars by wire ropes running over drums, 
 the ropes being disposed in various ways according to the lay of the 
 ground. One of the essential devices is the cast steel nose or cone (Bap- 
 tist patent), which caps the log automatically when the rope is pulled taut, 
 and steers the log over any stumps, stones, or other impediments.
 
 FALLS AND SLUICEWAY, WHITEFISH RIVER, ALGOMA. 
 
 Photo by J. W. Wells. 
 
 CATARACT AND TIMBER SLIDE, WHITEFISH RIVER. ALGOMA. 
 
 Photo by I. W.Weils.
 
 80 
 
 There are now four different methods of steam skidding used. The 
 simplest, applicable to flat lands, consists in snaking the logs over the 
 ground and assembling them at the cars by means of a hoisting engine and 
 drum, a horse returning the rope with a grappling hook or tongs at the end ; 
 the loading is done by a separate rope and drum. 
 
 The distance to which this skidding may be done is, of course, depend- 
 ent upon the length of rope which it is practicable to wind on the drum or 
 drums and to have the horse return. Usually this is not more than 800 to 
 1,500 feet, when the machine may make from 150 to 250 pulls per day, the 
 cost on the average with a crew of eleven men and three mules being about 
 
 By permission, Society of Western Engineers. 
 
 $24 per day, and the output, of course, dependent on the character of the 
 timber and the log size, which determines the number of feet coming with 
 each pull. 
 
 Where the ground is less flat and simple in contour, and where it is 
 preferable to return the rope and grapple automatically, the "slack rope 
 system" may be employed. In this system a wire cable is strung from a 
 head tree near the engine to a stump in the woods, on which travels a car- 
 riage (Miller patent), with a specially designed block (Butler's patent) 
 through which the skidding rope with logging tongs works, so as to allow 
 sidewise extension ; an outhaul rope, running over a separate drum of the 
 hoisting engine, returns carriage and tongs to the woods, where the tong 
 men pull the rope slack and attach the tongs to the logs lying along the line 
 shorter or longer distances,
 
 81 
 
 The loading on cars is done by a separate set of drums and rigging. 
 To use this system, which may extend to a longer distance than the snak- 
 ing system satisfactorily, the ground must be tolerably free from rocks and 
 obstructions. According to conditions and distances, from 80 to 120 pulls 
 may be made in a day. A later improvement provides for a number of 
 side lines working simultaneously, by which the efficiency is greatly in- 
 creased ; otherwise horses or mules gather the logs to the pulling line. 
 
 In the cypress swamps, where this method is largely used, the machine 
 is placed on a large scow, moving in canals prepared to float the logs. Here 
 the distance to which the skidder works is 2,500 to 4,000 feet, the ponder- 
 ous logs moving at the rate of 500 to 600 feet a minute, breaking through 
 the timber with thundering noise. Such a pull boat is capable of landing 
 30,000 to 50,000 feet per day in the water. 
 
 In more mountainous districts, where narrow valleys and coves with 
 steep slopes are to be lumbered, the log-gathering system finds its condi- 
 tions. In this a cable is stretched from slope to slope across the railroad 
 track in the valley, and the logs are gathered to the track by the skidding 
 rope and carriage. The distance to which the system may work, depend- 
 ing somewhat on the degree of slope, may be up to 1,000 feet, when from 
 120 to 150 pulls per day may be made. 
 
 In these last two systems up-hill skidding is, to be sure, as easy, or 
 even easier, than down-hill. According to conditions, either of these sys- 
 tems, or any combination of them, or a combination of skidding by horse 
 and steam, or a relay system with several engines placed one after the other 
 reaching out long distances, will give the best results. 
 
 The first steam logging railroad was built in Michigan in 1876 by W- 
 S. Gerrish, who was called a hare-brained enthusiast for his innovation, 
 which, however, proved successful. Ten years later many such logging 
 roads of 25 and even 45 miles in length ; and altogether over 3,000 miles 
 were in existence ; in Michigan alone over 720 miles. Now the logging 
 railroad has become so general that the mileage may be estimated to exceed 
 25,000 miles. 
 
 There are still three different kinds of logging railroads in use : The 
 pole road, the tramway with sawed wood rails with or without strap iron 
 capping or flat bar iron rail, and the iron or steel T railroad. Each road 
 has its merits and advantages of its own in given situations, although 
 the regular steel T railroad, all things considered, seems to have found 
 most favor. 
 
 In the Cornell College forest a standard gauge with 40-pouna steel 
 rail has been used on spurs, and a 46-pound rail on the main road, with a 
 27-ton engine. 
 
 The economical construction of logging roads which are designed to 
 serve only a temporary requirement is one of the engineering problem? 
 which more and more interests lumbermen, and even to a greater extent
 
 82 
 
 foresters, who are forced to secure even greater economy, since the mar- 
 gins from their business are for a time at least necessarily smaller, in 
 such roads cuts and fills must be avoided as much as possible, while heavv 
 grades, numerous and sharp curves are necessarily to be extensively used 
 and it takes a careful weighing of saving in cost of first construction 
 against losses in maintenance and efficiency, such as no engineer is called 
 upon to make in constructing standard roads. It stands to reason that to 
 secure the least expensive logging roads, the main effort must be made in 
 the location of the road, for this influences not only the cost of constructing 
 but of operating it. No rules but engineering gumption must determine 
 Where wood is cheap and right at hand, it is often indicated to use imper- 
 fect and unmarketable logs instead of earthwork, or matting of brushwood 
 and cribbing for crossing swamps, and similar devices which do not com- 
 mend themselves for main lines. 
 
 in Europe portable tramways and wire rope ways are much employed 
 the longest, five miles, being in the Alps. Portable railways are some- 
 times employed in connection with more permanent roads, 2 rails attached 
 to steel ties ; each yoke, 10-15 feet long, with 10-24 Ib. rail, weighing 75- 
 100 pounds, hook into each other. The newest type has been invented bv 
 a forester, and is laid without rails. The log-slide, with or without water, 
 is a device well-known in mountainous or broken regions where water is 
 available. One such in the Sierra Nevada is an incline 4,000 feet long and 
 with a 1,400 feet elevation. It delivers 10,000 cords a day. 
 
 Altogether landing places and terminals must be located with circum- 
 spection, to take care of the bulky material and secure the cheapest handling
 
 83 
 
 of it, which, with cordwood even more than with logs, depends upon the 
 character of the landings. 
 
 There are now very generally employed steam loaders ; hoisting en- 
 gines with outhaul ropes running over drums, which pick up the logs 
 alongside the track. Various devices are resorted to to facilitate the pass- 
 ing of cars and to locate the loader with reference to cars and landing 
 places. 
 
 In the "Barnhart" and in the "American" Loader this is accomplished 
 by having rails laid on the cars on which the loader travels, pulling itself 
 'along as needed, the latter on two short portable sections of track, the for- 
 mer on permanent track. Such a loader of the Barnhart type as used in 
 the College forest, will pick up and load from 600 to 800 logs per day, the 
 logs being banked to within 100 feet or so from the track. It is able to 
 move on a pivot in all directions, and the character of the landing place is 
 of little importance. 
 
 In the "Decker" log loader the clearing of the track for bringing emp- 
 ties to the loader is accomplished by allowing them to pass underneath the 
 loader over a three-rail section of track, which rises from the main track 
 and is carried by the loader on its lower story. 
 
 In forestry work, where the care for the young aftergrowth must be 
 taken into consideration, modification of the methods of procedure will be 
 required. They are, however, directly applicable where clearing with arti- 
 ficial planting is practiced, or where the strip system is used, which con- 
 sists in clearing strips and securing the reproduction by seeds from the 
 neighboring old timber which is left standing. When the forester shall be 
 a fully recognized and established institution in Canada we may 
 expect that he will develop these methods of exploitation to suit the addi- 
 tional requirements of silviculture. 
 
 In mechanical engineering, also, there is still a wide field unoccupied, 
 the development of which would aid the business of the forester. We are 
 still relying on brute force for felling trees, sawing them into logs and cut- 
 ting and splitting cordwood. Attempts to apply steam or electric power 
 in tree felling have so far failed to bring out any practical method. There 
 are now on trial cordwood cutting machines, but they are so far only ap- 
 plicable for very special conditions which can be rarely met. 
 
 In entirely different direction is engineering skill demanded, and a 
 special line of forest engineering has developed in connection with the re- 
 clamation and reforestation of sand dunes and denuded mountain sides. 
 Tlhis has been especially developed by the French foresters, the French 
 government having spent many million dollars in covering the lands and 
 sand dunes of Gascony, and in safe-guarding Southern mountain ranges 
 against torrential action induced by deforestation. This forest engineer- 
 ing is now practiced in all countries where forestry is developed and the ne- 
 cessity for this work has been recognized.
 
 84 
 
 The fixation of sand dunes has also been begun in the United States 
 by the Harbor Commissioners of Massachusetts at Cape Cod and else- 
 where. It is a simple operation, which consists in first quieting the sand 
 by mechanical means, fences and brush, or turf cover, and by cutting off or 
 breaking the force of the wind by means of an artificially induced forward 
 dune. Then grasses and other deep-rooting and root-creeping plants are 
 used to bind the sand together, and finally tree growth can be established to 
 give permanent protection. 
 
 On the denuded mountain slopes it is also first the mechanical quieting 
 of water and soil movement which must precede the work of the forester. 
 This work must begin at the top of the mountains, where the waters gather 
 their momentum into torrents which carry soil and debris to lower levels. 
 By fascine works, revetments and retaining walls the waters are obstructed 
 
 By permission, Western Society of Engineers. 
 
 in their direct descent, and the violent rush over steep slopes is changed in- 
 to gentle falls, when the pockets behind the breastworks are filled up with 
 the debris and soil. Then when the waters are directed into proper channels 
 and the soil has thus become quieted, sodding and sowing with grass re- 
 stores the meadow on the gentler slopes, while on the steeper slopes a forest 
 growth is planted and the equilibrium of nature's forces, which man had 
 disturbed to his own detriment by the reckless devastation of the mountain 
 forests, will be gradually re-established. 
 
 These glimpses into the problems of an engineering character which 
 are presented to the forester will suffice to justify the claim that he is in 
 need of a considerable amount of engineering knowledge and gumption, 
 which is to be applied under conditions in which it is not usually practic- 
 able to employ an engineer.
 
 85 
 
 While for main constructions it may be advisable to call in an engi- 
 neer, at least in consultation, in smaller constructions and in operating 
 roads, railroads, etc., the forester can hardly afford not to be his own engi- 
 neer. He must have the knowledge which will make him independent of 
 the professional engineer. Students of forestry, therefore, need a course 
 in engineering which will make them acquainted with principles and meth- 
 ods of construction of special interest to them in their business. On the 
 other hand engineers may find a field in solving engineering problems for 
 the forester, and in improving his methods, without becoming professional 
 foresters. 
 
 LOGGING.
 
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