Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/326

312. Instead of an accidental growth of trees, spared from the general clearing of the ground, which have been suffered to come up in a hap-hazard sort of way, exposed to assault and damage of various kinds, from insects, from browsing cattle allowed to roam freely among them, and from the carelessness, if not the wanton waste, of man, the forest is regarded as a growth carefully provided for, the conditions of its increase are diligently studied beforehand, and all means are used to develop it to the fullest measure of its value according to the purpose for which its cultivation has been undertaken. In short, forestry looks upon the growth of a piece of woods as we look upon the growth of plants in a garden, or a crop in the field of a farmer, as the result both of science and art. Only it is a nobler growth than these, and requires a higher science and nicer art, inasmuch as the trees measure their age by centuries and not by months or seasons, as do the ordinary crops of the garden and the field, and because they have important relations, controlling relations even to agriculture itself, to climate, to commerce, and the industrial arts, and so to the highest interests of national life.

The work of forestry, as understood in Europe, contemplates not only the proper care of existing woodlands, but the replanting of districts which have been stripped of their forests, and also the planting of forests in new places, where such planting may be advantageously done. Schools of forestry have their origin in the desire to accomplish this most successfully. The growth of a forest is the work of a century, and even more. It is not properly to be undertaken with only the limited intelligence or care with which we cultivate the annual crops of our fields. If the work is begun without adequate preparation, or is conducted in a faulty manner, the mistake can not be remedied soon, if at all. If one makes a mistake in the culture of ordinary crops, he can correct it the next year; but, if he plants a forest on an erroneous plan, the mistake is not one of a year, but of a hundred, or even two hundred years. Not only is it necessary that the botany of the trees should be understood, the nature and habits of the various species be studied, and their adaptations to different soils and situations, as well as to different practical uses when grown, be regarded, but the laws of meteorology are to be considered and conformed to. The knowledge of geology and mineralogy is also involved, as well as the laws of mechanics. Indeed, no sooner is the subject taken into consideration in its true character, than it is seen to be interwoven with a very large range of studies, so that something like schools of forestry seem almost at once desirable, if not indispensable.

The beginning of forest schools may be dated from 1770, when Frederick the Great established a course of theoretical instruction in forestry at Berlin. This, however, was irregular, dependent upon the competency of the professors at the university, for the time being, to