The Day's Work of a Forester

Macbeth.

FORESTRY may briefly be defined as the science of conservative lumbering ; or, more at length, as the study of the management of a forest in a way to secure a financial return to the owner, at stated intervals of rotation, which will be at least equal to, and is in fact greater than, that attained by the usual methods of lumbering, and at the same time so to protect, to perpetuate, and to improve the younger forest as to insure its permanence, and therefore to make the retention of it a paying investment. In total disagreement with the popular notion of it, forestry has as its aim only partially the preservation of the forests, as this affects the owners’ income or is to their advantage in other ways ; and while the conserving of our water supply and the continued enjoyment of forestal beauty will be brought about by the better methods of lumbering introduced by forestry, the proper economic conception of a forest is that of a great natural reservoir of useful raw material which, if sound and matured timber, should be converted into a finished product for man’s comfort and welfare. Then, too, forestry is not merely the culture of trees, with reference to their picturesque effects, in parks or groves ; it is not landscape gardening. Its practicality is hence the ultimate test of the usefulness of the forester’s profession, and his daily work in the woods must partake very largely of a life of that nature. For forestry, to lumbermen, means a business ; and unless it pays to employ a trained forester, — that is, unless his presence will not only restrain any immediate waste in the course of cutting and guard against later depredations that can be prevented, but will also absolutely increase the future value of the forest to them, in both the quality and the quantity of the wood, and therefore also in its salability, — his services will not be needed in the woods. However, the time is now ripe in this country for an intelligent handling of the forest with these ends in view ; for it is imperative that the ruthless slashing and rough destruction of all undergrowth, which characterize American lumbering of the present day, shall cease. Unless we foster our forests there will soon be no woodland.

Forestry is no new thing in European countries, where the necessity for it arrived long ago ; and there is a growing conviction in America that, in one way or another, something must be done with the virgin timber that still remains here. It is the policy of the Bureau of Forestry of the United States Department of Agriculture to encourage the new lumbering in every possible way, for as yet there are very few private foresters in this country. In a circular issued not long ago to lumbermen and the owners of wood lots, it offered to give practical assistance and advice in the management of their stand of timber. The good achieved was twofold, in that, while the private interests were being looked to, and widespread instruction upon the principles of forestry thereby created, the government at the same time was gathering statistics of the growth and stand of timber in various regions, — statistics that are for the most part new, and that will be exceedingly valuable to future foresters. The information thus gained is frequently embodied in a report issued as a Bulletin. As a result of this effort, many owners of large and small tracts in almost every section of the country have taken advantage of the offer and made application for working plans. The Bureau of Forestry has also coöperated with the state of New York in the surveying of its state lands in the Adirondacks. It is the wish, too, of the government to encourage the introduction of tree plantations on a large scale out upon the plains, or wherever the forests have been devastated and trees are needed ; and the success of this movement has been most gratifying, thousands of acres having already been planted in catalpa, black locust, black walnut, and other woods, which will be ready for use in a few years as posts, railroad ties, or for similar purposes.

The first thing to be done, in the preparation of a working plan, after a preliminary cruising has been made and the advisability of it determined, is to make an estimate of the actual stand of merchantable timber upon the tract. This is accomplished by conducting a number of valuation surveys. The method of surveying adopted by the government is what is known as the strip method. Usually three men are employed in a crew : the central one, as tallyman and the head of the crew, to record the trees, and a man on each side of him to measure them with calipers. There is sometimes a fourth man, to keep the course selected, and thus to relieve the tallyman of the annoyance of constant attention to a compass. Calipers, be it known to those unacquainted with them, are a scale or rule, generally three feet in length, with a stationary arm at one end, and a movable, sliding one at the other, which may so be adjusted that both will clasp the tree, when the exact diameter may be read in inches on the scale.

It is the duty of the men with calipers to announce to the tallyman the species and diameter, taken breast-high, of each tree as it is measured, and it is the duty of the tallyman to keep an accurate record of the trees and dimensions given. The tallyman must also note the variation in altitude, the direction followed, the general character of the country and soil, the depth of the humus, the ground cover, the extent and quality of the reproduction, and the kinds of seedlings and saplings forming the undergrowth ; observe the density of the forest ; determine the present condition of the trees, if sound or unsound ; decide whether the quality of the timber is as good as it should be for the soil, situation, and density that it has ; and pass his judgment upon whether the country is favorable or unfavorable for lumbering.

The tallyman is provided with a chain, thirty-three (or occasionally sixty-six) feet in length, which is attached usually to a belt about his waist ; and armed with chain, tally board, and calipers, and with lunch for the noon hour, the crew of foresters go forth into “ the merry green woods ” for the fray. After the tallyman has steered the course with his compass and walked from the starting point the length of a chain, he is halted, and the survey begins ; the men with calipers keeping an equal distance of thirty-three feet upon each side of him, and measuring all the trees within that distance. As soon as all these have been measured and recorded up to the limit of the length of the chain, the tallyman proceeds along his course another chain’s length, is again stopped at the end of it, and the survey continues as before. It is at first somewhat difficult for those calipering to keep an accurate estimate of the distance ; but in doubtful cases, when a tree seems to be almost beyond the limit, the distance is generally paced or measured with the chain, and it soon becomes an easy matter. Twenty chains of this sort of surveying, if a thirtythree-foot chain is used, complete one acre ; if a sixty-six-foot chain is chosen, only ten lengths are necessary. Each acre, when finished, is filed by itself, and is considered to be one valuation survey. From fifteen to twenty acres, in ordinary country and with a moderate stand of timber (say three hundred trees calipered to the acre), is an average day’s work, if the diameters be taken down to a five-inch limit ; but the area of timber surveyed will vary considerably with the diameter limit, the number of trees found, and the character of the country, whether open or hilly, and also will greatly increase in extent if only certain species are to be calipered, and not the entire stand. The writer very well recollects one memorable survey made in the woods of central Arkansas, and on the day before Christmas, too, in which, as tallyman, he recorded the trees on seventy acres in one day ; but only the pines were measured, and even then the diameter was at ten inches. If hardwoods had been included, the number of acres would have been cut down by over half. The tallyman, as a rule, has the easier time of it, for the men who do the measuring must go from tree to tree and swing their calipers about in every direction, and they will, as a rule, manage to cover about twice as much territory as he does ; but the tallyman must keep his eyes open, for all depends upon the accuracy of his record.

The strip method varies in operation according to the ends in view, the topography and the percentage of timbered land to be surveyed. Indeed, in some large tracts, where the character of the country has been ascertained to be generally similar and where the stand of timber is quite uniform, it has been customary to survey along the section lines or to zigzag obliquely from corner to corner across the quarter sections, following the map ; in others, where a greater percentage to be surveyed has been involved and where the country and timber have varied a good deal, the township lines have been reblazed, and parallel surveys made from stations half a mile — or perhaps even less — distant from one another along those lines ; in smaller tracts, where certain kinds of timber were mainly in question — as, for example, the percentage of cedar in swamp lands — or where previous surveys had been made, only those portions have been gone over which are of pertinence in an estimate of the timber. The percentage of timber actually surveyed for an estimate varies from two to five per cent, or, in rare cases, even more. These surveys, taken as they are impartially as regards the stand of timber, across poor country as well as good, are considered to afford an average acre, and it is believed that this method comes within five per cent of the actual stand of timber ; whereas a lumberman, by cruising over a tract and selecting what in his judgment is a representative acre, and then estimating the general stand from that, rarely comes nearer than within twenty per cent of the total stand, as shown by the lumbering of it, and his estimate is likely to vary from within ten to forty per cent.

Culling, in an estimate, is accomplished in several ways : first, while the surveys are being made, by not calipering the trees that are evidently inferior ; second, by using the percentage of cull trees and logs as shown in the stem analyses made on similar ground or on the tract actually surveyed, or by using the cull figures of the lumbermen ; and, third, by surveying all the trees on a marked acre before it has been lumbered, and then resurveying the same area after all the merchantable trees have been cut off. All these methods are good. Few men know what is in a tree until it has been cut ; and an accurate percentage of culls is one of the most important things to be considered by a forester.

As many survey and other crews are provided as are necessary and possible. The number of men in a camp will range from three to thirty, or more, according to the size of the tract and the importance and pressure of the work. Canned goods are the most portable food, and tents and blankets are the usual movable equipment for a camp, including a cook tent and utensils ; but frequently the work requires a party to be so constantly with the men of the lumber camps that in such cases they have their lodging and meals with the lumbermen. A cook always accompanies an independent party, except in emergency cases, in order that no time may be lost by the men themselves. Yet there are occasions when the forester will rejoice if he is able to prepare a meal ; and if he finds himself slightly in ignorance on such matters, he will probably come out of the woods with at least a better conscience and perhaps a little more self-reliance. It may be said, too, that he will be somewhat more competent to wash his own clothes, should the necessity for it ever arrive thereafter. The men usually have cots to sleep on, as these may be folded and are quite light in weight ; but it is not at all an infrequent occurrence for them to make their own beds of leaves and boughs, and roll up in blankets like soldiers, with the rest of their belongings for pillows ; for the camps are shifted as the work progresses, and the distance to camp each day becomes greater, and to be always in readiness and in light marching order is one of the best rules for the mobility of the men and for the advance and success of the season’s work. The men all rise early, and work long and hard ; but it is much better that less work be done, and that done well, than that the result should be merely a showing in numbers, and not in accuracy. The camp equipment is all moved by teams, if possible, but occasionally is transported in canoes, if the nature of the country requires it, or is carried in pack baskets, on their backs, Indian style, by the men themselves.

Surveying is hard work. To walk from ten to twenty miles a day, calipering and tallying, up over hills above the clouds and down again in the valleys, through swamps and thickets, wading perchance across streams, sometimes climbing great precipices, while affording every opportunity for gaining an acquaintance with the trees and with all the wild life of the forest, and for the enjoyment of much beautiful scenery too, must not be looked upon as an easy task. It is one that would be shunned by most men. The lines do not always fall in pleasant places. Yet it is the most important part of the work to be done.

Next in importance to the surveys, for practical calculations, but of greater scientific interest, are the analyses of the stems or trunks of the various kinds and sizes of merchantable trees on the tract. If possible, the lumbermen are followed and measurements taken as the trees are cut; but frequently special felling is done for the purpose, and the logs are rolled out with cant hooks by the men of the crews. Usually two men are sufficient for this purpose, one to tally and to do his share also in helping the other ; but as many men can be used as are available or as one tallyman can keep up with. The age of the tree is found by counting the number of its annual rings of growth at the stump ; the diameter, too, is taken there, and the years and diameter are also ascertained at the end of each log cut. From these and similar data may be learned the time necessary for the different species to reach certain heights and diameters under their separate conditions of soil, situation, and density, which are recorded in the case of each individual tree. An account is kept of each tree’s soundness and of each log’s ; of the shape of the trunk, whether straight or crooked, tapering or cylindrical ; of the form of its crown, whether full or narrow, long, short, or scraggly ; and of the length of the logs, of the crown, and of the whole tree. The height of the stump is then taken, and the length along the trunk that is clear of all branches, from the ground up to the first limb three inches in diameter, is measured ; or, where there is no three-inch limb, the beginning of the crown is considered as the end of the clear length, and the diameter taken in either case. The actual merchantable point, too, is observed, with its diameter and the distance to it from the ground. Other height and clear-length measurements of standing trees are obtained separately with a hypsometer, and the trees thus measured should be in all situations and for all diameters.

The record of the rings is a most interesting study, and the ways, too, in which the different trees and species reveal therein their individualities and life histories. The rings of some trees are wavy and irregular, while those of others show even growth. The record is imperishable and lives with the tree, and is a true one, showing in its wider rings the favorable seasons, and in its narrower rings the unfavorable years of drought, or fire, or late spring frosts. The writer has seen and measured, in the open stand of the loblolly pines in the Southern states, a distance of over one inch between one annual ring and another, making the increase in diameter for that year to be over two inches ; on the other hand he has frequently seen, in the Adirondacks, hemlocks so suppressed in growth that it had taken more than ten years to add one quarter of an inch to their diameters. The pine had had the most favorable environment in every way, and was scarcely one hundred years old, while the hemlocks, which were nearly five hundred years of age, and hence had been trees of some size when Columbus first saw land ahead in the west, had grown up in the shade, and had been protected from the winds which eventually blew down their taller neighbors. Trees, in stem analyses, are classified as either dominant, codominant, or suppressed. A dominant tree is one having a full enjoyment of open sunlight ; one codominant is perhaps slightly younger than the dominant and somewhat beneath it, though frequently aspiring to reach its fellows ; one that has been suppressed in growth is much lower than the others, and, if a tree of size, is usually as old as they, or older.

The percentage of sap and heart wood, for trees of different ages and at different heights on the same tree, is measured on the face of the cross-sections ; and no better opportunity could be afforded for learning the hardness, color, odor, and grain of the different woods than the study of these disks at the ends of the logs. In some, as in the oaks and ashes, the spring growth is a ring of open pores, and the summer wood a gradual thickening of them ; while in others, as in the maples and birches, the spring growth is very diffuse in a broad band, and the terminating distinct layer of summer wood is the only thing definite. In either case the ring records the year, and each year’s growth forms a new sheath inclosing the others. The growth is generally measured along the average radius, from the bark to the centre, in periods of ten years, and the distance, in tenths of inches, recorded for that period’s increase. The aim is to find the average rate of growth, and then to determine how many years it will take a tree, under certain expected conditions, to realize a desired diameter. The width of the bark is measured, too, for each log, thus showing the taper for the tree ; and there is quite a difference in every way in the bark of the various species. Where practicable, as in a windfall, studies in the root systems of the different species, the extent of their spread and the depth of them in certain soils and moisture, are also carried on. If there is any coppice growth which has sprouted from old cuttings, analyses are made of this, and a comparison thus afforded between the coppice and similar analyses of small seedlings. Anything unique in a tree’s history is definitely found out, and the characteristics of the different species on a tract become thoroughly learned ; as, for example, where a bird’s-eye maple is discovered, the distance is found along the trunk to which this phenomenon of the wood is discernible, and frequently it will be up even into the branches. The trees in mixture in the immediate vicinity of those examined are also mentioned in the analysis, and other relevant facts are remarked similar to those kept by the tallyman on the surveys.

It is hardly possible to ascertain the exact age of an old tree. It will have taken it a few years to grow up to the height of the stump on which the rings are counted, and the seasons may at times have been so unfavorable that, especially if a tree has a small top, not enough material will have been absorbed through its leaves that year to extend in new wood all the way down the trunk, and so no new ring will have been formed at the base.

Valuation surveys and stem analyses are the main data in the forester’s measurement of the stand and growth of his crop of trees, but their real significance is deeper than that, and is known only by very careful silvicultural observations. Silviculture is the study of the requirements and preferences of the different varieties of trees with reference to soil, situation, and density, and complements the practical aim of forestry proper. Such investigations are no less essential to the eventual success of a forester than the ascertaining of the stand of timber ; and, in fact, unless his specifications are supported by a thorough silvicultural knowledge of his forest, they are very likely to fall through. Much of the surveying and stem-analysis work, however, is found to be of great silvicultural value.

The forester should know, for example, the kinds of trees that grow best together, and how much light they will need, so that his thinning of useful but crowded material may be judicious. Cutting out the less important species and the inferior trees of the more valuable varieties is one of the most desirable features to introduce for the improvement of the forest. The rejected timber can easily be disposed of as cord wood, if in a region suitable for such work, and this will be found to pay the expense of having the work done ; while the seedlings of the finer trees will thereafter have a chance to live, and the straight boles of those left will widen and become still more symmetrical with the even increase of new foliage in the tops.

The study of the reproduction of the different species, of the most favorable conditions of soil, moisture, and light exposure in which the seeds of the various trees will best germinate, has many interesting silvicultural points. A representative square acre is measured off, peeled poles are driven at the corners and in conspicuous places along the lines, and trees that are on the lines are slightly blazed. All the seedling growth inclosed within these lines is then recorded, and the number of veterans and standards taken, also, so that the extent of the reproduction from these trees may be judged, and, in the poles and saplings, the proportion of the seedlings that will eventually mature. As an example of this work, after selecting what seemed to be a spot of average density and a normal distribution of trees, it was soon found, to the writer’s dismay and to that of the two men with him, that the recording of several thousand seedlings would be the result of this study in reproduction ; and the actual tally showed thirty-five hundred hard maples under one inch in diameter and over three inches in height, and a total of nearly six thousand trees and seedlings of all species. It is the duty of the forester to see that suitable and sufficient seed trees are left in the lumbering. In the Adirondacks, the percentage of spruce affected with mistletoe is noted in this sort of work. Sometimes smaller sample areas, say ten feet square, are picked out, and on these everything is counted, the wild flowers and grasses as well as the seedlings.

It is very desirable, therefore, that the forester have a good working knowledge of botany and geology as well as an understanding of his forest. It might be well, too, for him to have some acquaintance with astronomy, so that he could pilot himself by the north star, if in the woods at night without a compass. The true forester, however, will have other resources under such circumstances. He will know whither the streams lead, upon which slopes he is, from the kinds of timber upon them, and on a cloudy day can tell where the sun lies by the delicate shadow of his knife blade on his palm ; in fact, as old woodsmen say, the only compass absolutely necessary in the woods is a good silver dollar and a horseshoe nail. The moss on the trunks is generally a safe guide as to direction ; for it is thickest on the north side, because the sunlight comes upon it from the south, though it is dependent upon other light exposures, also, and in the case of a clearing may be of equal growth on all sides of the tree. Trees, too, dip along the banks of lakes and rivers, or wherever there is a depression, and the forester will perhaps be able to locate himself by such appearances of the forest.

Why is it that there are always more seedlings of birch on a fallen hemlock than anywhere else in the woods? Is it because there is something in the tannin of the bark which especially nurtures the growth of birches, or is it because the little seeds easily lodge as they are blown against the log and drift into its great seams ? The writer has seen old hemlock logs, in the forests, covered with ferns and with innumerable tiny seedlings of birch and spruce, and they seemed the most beautiful things in the world. Birches will grow upon old hemlock stumps, too, and frequently may be seen in their maturity, with their great roots, like buttresses, supporting the bases of their stems a foot or so in the air, and beneath each tree an open space where the stump had been and had decayed. Sometimes a row of these singularly propped-up birches may be observed ; and it will easily be seen that they were once seedlings on a log, for in the round hollow through their roots, evidently, once lay the original log which gave them life, and which they had twined about and clasped.

By the density of a forest is usually meant the extent to which the crown cover excludes the light from the forest floor beneath. In a wood where the canopy of leaves is so spread from one tree to another that it admits of practically no entrance for the sunlight the density is absolute ; but that would be a rare forest that did not have some openings through which the light might filter. Sometimes the stem density is recorded, too, in which instance the absolute density would be that of a forest completely crowded by the tree trunks. But in either case, whether stem density or crown density is called for, the actual density of the forest is averaged on the basis of a unit as the absolute density ; the various degrees of density, for different acres and situations, being ranged in decimals, according to the nature of each case. Thus, in the Adirondacks, the crown density for the entire forest averages about seven tenths ; and this is a very commendable density, for enough light is permitted to encourage the growth of the younger forest, while the older trees have ample space in which to spread their tops.

It is interesting, as an illustration, to observe that Spenser’s conception of a forest as a place completely shaded by the foliage, and yet with trees so far apart that a knight and his lady could ride side by side between them, and with paths leading throughout, perfectly free from the tangle of undergrowth, was evidently based upon one whose crown density had been so absolute that no light could enter, and that hence beneath it no seedlings could live :

The trees mentioned in the stanzas ensuing could hardly all be growing together naturally ; but if his description was based upon an actual forest (possibly composed largely of the English oak), there is no wonder that no seedlings survived, even of those species tolerant of shade, under a canopy so thick that it was “not perceable with power of any starr. ” Elsewhere, too, Spenser reiterates this mediæval ideal of the forest as

the inhabitants being generally found sequestered there among the trees “in secret shadow from the sunny ray.” Spenser’s grand old forest, however, is perhaps a sad commentary upon the endless jungle of decayed trunks and illmanaged undergrowth in so many of our forests of to-day.

It is well known that the evergreens, such as pine, balsam, hemlock, spruce, and cedar, thrive well beneath the shade of overarching broadleaf species, a new forest of conifers following the former one of hardwoods. This is especially noticeable in some places in the Berkshires, where the young evergreens, so tolerant of shade, form a beautiful under-forest in the older woods of maple, birch, beech, and ash. But the beech and the maples endure shade nearly as well, more so than almost any other broadleaf species. The writer has seen maples and beeches of some size growing healthily and with full green crowns, and yet completely overarched by the tops of their dominating neighbors, and with little entrance of light for them, except here and there among the trunks or through small openings between the branches. The basswood also endures shade well, with its wide leaves. But all trees love the light, and without it they could not live ; and wherever there is the least exposure of open sky among the trees, there you will find an arm perhaps of beech or of maple, trees that are otherwise tolerant of shade, gently fingering the light and stretching out into luxuriant life and growth. On the same tree, the leaves on those branches having a full enjoyment of light will be, as a rule, in much better condition, be larger and in better health, than those restricted to the shade.

It is interesting, silviculturally, to observe that in a forest of conifers the tamarack is evidently crowded off from the slopes by the spruce, balsam, and hemlock, — the tamarack requiring a greater amount of light than is afforded in the close stand of the others, which excludes the light. So, though the tamarack will grow on a ridge, if planted with no very near neighbors, it seems to have taken up its abode in the low, wet places where few other species choose to thrive, and where consequently each individual tree is permitted as much light as an unhindered open exposure can give. Again, it has been noticed that, at least in some sections of the country, the beech — a tree, as has been said, most tolerant of shade — will put forth long shoots of fresh green twigs and leaves at the first unfolding of the buds, some time before most of the other species are even swelling in the tips ; and this early growth of two weeks will in most cases be two thirds of the length of the total annual increase in height, as judged by the growth marks of previous years. This remarkable and sudden springing out of the beech at the first approach of spring, when the other surrounding trees are still undeveloped in their foliage, and when, therefore, there is less shade and an easier entrance of light, is doubtless one cause for its well-known tolerance of shade ; for most of its leaves are well developed before the shade from the contiguous trees comes, and the later growth, after the light begins to be excluded by their oncoming foliage, is much less, thus showing that it does not get all its growth from a small amount of light. The beech is one of the most interesting and beautiful of trees in its habits. Thoreau was very enthusiastic over the “lichen-painted” beeches. And the different varieties of birches, — what grace in them, what refinement and delicacy of light green foliage and white bark! Readers of Hamerton will well remember his fine description of them in The Sylvan Year. Each tree has its own individuality, and to know this completely is the part of silviculture. The real reasons for many of the ascertained facts in the forest’s life are questions still open for the forester to solve.

Another interesting study in silviculture is that of the kinds of trees found generally together, and those growing upon different slopes and in different soils. In the Adirondacks, for example, the red spruce and other evergreens thrive best upon the southern and western slopes, while the broadleaf hardwoods are larger and more numerous and in better health on the eastern and northern slopes ; apparently an anomalous condition, for one would naturally expect the reverse, the hardwoods needing light and the conifers enduring the shade. Moisture conditions doubtless have something to do with it, however, and we consequently find the softwoods most numerous on those slopes which the sun reaches first, and whose soil is as a result drier, while the hardwoods grow better on those sides of the mountains not always openly exposed to the rays of the sun, and the soil on which is therefore more moist and porous.

These are some aspects of the forester’s everyday life in the woods ; but these are not all of it. The forester in charge of a party has much more to do. He must prevent the use of valuable timber in the construction of skidways, and regulate the cutting of the trees, that they be not sawed too high ; for thousands of board feet are lost every year in lumber, in tall stumps. He should know how much it costs per thousand feet to get the logs sawed and on to the skidways, and how much to get them from the skidways to the mill and into lumber. He must know which species especially to encourage on his tract, in view of present and future markets, and how best to foster them. He must go over the ground and select sites for camps, must buy provisions and see that all goes well with the men, and must make a thorough reconnoissance of the whole tract, botanical, geological, and topographical, and collect all sorts of material for his report which the survey parties would not see or be expected to see. He will later collate the results of all that has been done in the woods, and embody his conclusions in a working plan for the lumbering of the tract, together with recommendations looking toward the obviation of soil erosion ; the prevention of fires, if that be necessary ; the best ways of combating the many other enemies of the forest, such as insects and fungi (as, for example, the burning of pruned branches, dead stumps, and tops left after the lumbering) ; and, if his work be in the West, perhaps the most advisable methods of regulating the grazing or browsing of sheep or cattle. After the field season is over, there is still much office work to be done before the real facts of a summer’s survey can be learned, and then explicitly stated in accurate specifications. With the data obtained from the stem analyses and height measurements symbolic curves are plotted, representing the rise in height with the increase in diameter, and also the rising height with the increase in age. Mainly, however, the number of merchantable logs on a tract must approximately be determined in terms of board feet, together with the percentage of each species and of the trees of each diameter, and the diameter limit to which it is safe to cut in order that a continuous financial return may be secured.

It has been the good fortune of the writer to have work in the woods assigned to him in more than one locality, during the past year. He has been in the endless pine forests of Arkansas in the winter time, among the beautiful Berkshire Hills in spring, upon Grand Island, Michigan, during the summer, and in the Adirondacks in autumn : and not the least enjoyable of the things seen and remembered is the time when, on a Thanksgiving Day hunt, he came across a cabin deep in the woods, with an outjutting rafter strung with black, fox, and gray squirrels, cottontails and big swamp hares, doves and quail ; or or when an old Confederate soldier strolled into camp with his son-in-law, and the latter gave us The Arkansaw Traveler on a fiddle in genuine Southern style, while another beat time with a straw on the strings and made a weird accompaniment to the playing of the tune ; or when, beside some stream bordered and fringed with alders and birches, he toasted his bread, reclined upon a soft carpet of spring beauties, and listened to the musical, ceaseless swirl of the waterfalls ; or when, in the evening, he was one of a happy group about a huge camp fire of driftwood on the shores of Lake Superior ; or when once he almost stepped on a fawn in the forest, and when three beautiful does came tripping past his camp, and again when a buck bounded away before him early one morning, and he could hear the antlers crack and knock against the undergrowth ; or when, in the night, he lay beneath a lean-to of bark and leafy branches, and slept upon balsam boughs under the stars. But he especially remembers one beautiful noon in the Berkshires, when he and his companions had lunch in the shade of two spruce trees on a hillside. It was a clear and perfect day. In the south was Mount Tom ; toward the north old Greylock loomed up in sheer massiveness ; to the east the lovely Massachusetts country lay spread out before him ; westward, ponds could be seen among the hills, whose slopes, too, were strikingly varied in color in their spring green, the lighter hues of beech and ash being mingled with the darker balsam and spruce ; beyond these was a view of the Housatonie Valley, with a glimpse of a village here and there ; while far in the distance, in irregular gray outline, like clouds banked up along the horizon, were the Catskills. He never tired of looking toward the Catskills. It was the old story of Rip Van Winkle come back again through the years with all the freshness and dream of boyhood.

This enjoyment of the wild, the quaint, and the picturesque is a part of the life of the forester, and of his daily life, and not the least part of it. No man, it has been said by Mr. Gifford Pinchot, should be a forester who is not by instinct a hunter ; and it is a comfortable doctrine to preach, and a still more comfortable one to practice. For the forester has opportunities to see and to know the wild life of the forest better than most men. He hears the whistle of the quail and the drumming of the partridge, and frequently he finds their nests and sees their broods of young ; he learns the ways of the wild duck, stumbles upon the curious nest of the ovenbird, and becomes acquainted with many rare, shy birds ; he has the best of chances to observe the squirrels and deer, the two most graceful animals in the woods, in their native homes amid the trees, and he comes across saplings against which deer have scraped their horns when in the velvet, follows their trails to his work, surveys through their feeding grounds where they have browsed the tips of cedar, hemlock, ash, and basswood, picks up their cast-off antlers lying among the leaves, and finds the beds of matted grass and ferns where they have lain. And then, too, few things are quite so palatable as game cooked to a crisp over a wood fire in the open air, and nothing tastes so good as pure, fresh, cold water drunk straight from a brook, without the intervening aid of cup or glass. These also are the forester’s advantages. He may fry some brook trout or pickerel for breakfast, roast a piece of venison for lunch, and broil a rabbit or squirrel for supper. The writer has had bass, venison, and partridge in one day, and all taken within a mile of camp. This, it is true, is not the ordinary camp fare ; but a taste of game is not at all uncommon, and guns and rifles are almost a necessary part of an outfit.

The forest’s growth is quickly responsive to man’s hints. The old story in Virgil’s Æneid, of how the branches of cornel, when torn, shed blood, having sprung from the body of Polydorus, is not so far from the mark. The forest is very much alive. It is not always a “gloomy wood, ” leading to hell, as the old Florentine pictured it, nor are we always astray therein. Readers of Hamerton will recollect his attractive portrayal of the primitive life of the forester, Jean Bouleau, in The Sylvan Year, and of his hut, — “a sort of wigwam of young oak trunks and branches, with a thatch of gorse that covered both roof and wall.” Do you remember, too, the old antiquary in The Unknown River, who every year retired for the summer to his hut on the hill, amid the beeches ; compelled to flee the city, with its magnificences, overcome because of his desire “for the little hut, and the free range of the wild forest, and the fresh, high air, and the healthy days of toil, and the lonely evening walks about the hill, and the vast, illimitable horizons ” ? Well, it is with some such feelings, perhaps, that the forester of to-day, if he be a man, should venture upon his duties, with his heart in his work, knowing that it is not every one who has his privileges. There is always something new in his profession, some unknown fact about trees to discover, untrodden regions to explore, something ever to identify. It is not all learned in a day, and there are few other ways of earning one’s living in which more mental activities are brought into play, or where the work itself is so constantly interesting, and the daily task, performed in the exhilaration of the great outdoors, has combined with it so much of real pleasure.

But, besides affording a life perhaps a little like that of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, the forest imparts to men also the finer spiritual influences. Nature wins us over by uplifting our emotions as well as by inspiring us to scientific investigation. The forester who does not feel the majesty of the forest, the infinite beauty of the sky, the repose of the hills, and the illimitable life and mystery of the world has not found all that is there, among the trees and the flowers. He is a good poet, and might have made a forester, who has written of trees in these beautiful lines; and they will be appreciated by every lover of the woods, and by all who have a concern for the poetic in life as well as for the industrial and commercial: —

Paul Griswold Huston.