GLIMPSES OF EUROPEAN FORESTRY

By Homer D. House, State Botanist

1. The Black Forest

It is surely the part of wisdom to seek truth and guidance wherever they may be found. The country with which we are now at war has practiced intensive forestry for more than a century and to a marked degree has combined successfully economic and aesthetic forestry. The famous Black Forest was not only a source of substantial revenue but a place of beauty which attracted visitors from all over the world.

The present conflict will make many changes in Europe and perhaps the forest regions which have delighted so many Americans will be cleared to help fill depleted treasuries. Both from the standpoint of charm and excellence we take pleasure in reprinting this and other sketches by Dr. House.-[Editor.]

DARE say that no one who has ever visited the region of the Black Forest fails to look back upon that visit as one of the milestones upon life's journey. A semi-mountainous region extending from the Neckar at Heidelberg to the Swiss border and from the valley of the Rhine across Baden and most of Wurtemberg, for the most part covered with forests of spruce or fir and with small farms and villages in the valleys, with its fine roads reaching to every portion of the forest, it presents a picture of beauty that does not fade quickly from the mind.

In the days of the primeval Black Forest the conditions were somewhat like those prevailing on the Pacific coast 20 years ago, in regard to lumbering operations. The timber most accessible was cut first. The operations were reckless, timber rights were sold cheaply or were given away. The logging camps were established where there was a little tillable soil, and from such beginnings have come the numerous little villages of the Black Forest. The men worked in the woods, and during periods when woods work was slack they cultivated their little tracts of ground, built roads, wove baskets and carved wood. The

BLACK FOREST SPRUCE

-by Courtesy of the State Botanist Containing upward of 60,000 board feet to the acre. No preparatory cuts have been made, which accounts for the absence of undergrowth.

government received, on the average, only 6 cents a log in those days. No working plans existed, as all the timber was mature; but with the development of railroads and new markets and the enlargement of the market from a local one to a far-reaching one, the value of the Black Forest rose by leaps and bounds in spite of the rapid cutting away of the primeval forest.

The Black Forest covers 500,000 acres in Baden and 600,000 acres in Wurtemberg. Much of it is now private (such as the enormous holdings of the princes of Furstenberg), communal, state and stock companies.

The early method of marketing the timber was to raft the logs down the streams to Holland or intermediate markets, but prior to 1718

the existence of many little principalities through which the logs must pass to a market made it expensive or unremunerative in spite of the low cost of the stumpage. After 1718, by means of a treaty between the various small states, the rafting of logs became possible upon a large scale.

No good records exist of the forest conditions of the Black Forest prior to 1758, when the region is said to have contained more than 80,000 feet of timber an acre, and many trees contained as high as 28,000 board feet each.

The companies rafting logs to Holland in some cases required tracts of timber which they still hold and operate. That their early operations consisted in taking only the best is testified by Jagerschmidt who, in 1828 writes that the tracts over which they had logged contained still many fine trees over one foot in diameter and 100 feet tall. Only the very best trees were taken out in the same way that the early lumbering operations in this country were conducted.

The lowest and easiest slopes were logged first and hence today we find for the most part the best and oldest stands (second growth) closest to the streams and in most accessible places, while at the higher altitudes and most inaccessible places where the good roads have only penetrated within the past 50 years we find the youngest stands, for it was here that the primeval growth was cut last.

Stumpage prices in the Black Forest have risen very rapidly, even recently. In the yast five years from $13 to $17, and from $20 to $26 for the better stuff. Only since there has come to be a market for any and all products of the forest have working plans come to be a feature of Black Forest operations. Formerly the working plans were made for periods of 100 years, but with the increasing realization that conditions of market and transportation and demand change rapidly, these working plan periods have been made shorter and shorter, until plans for ten year periods are considered quite sufficient in most places.

A working plan of a German forest is an interesting document and consists of: (a) Inventory of values at hand (statement of facts); and includes timber, pasture, hunting rights, value of land, minerals, water power, mill property, roads, logs cut and on hand, nursery sites, agricul

Following preparatory cuts made 10 years previously, the second crop is becoming established.

tural lands, etc. (b) Boundaries, organization, means of logging, etc. (c) Market and relative demand for the various products, local or foreign. (d) Working plan (that is, changes of facts to be made or provided for). Herein is outlined the work to be carried out on the forest in the future.

What a working plan provides is of course largely governed by the owner's opinion. An optimistic owner will cut little; hence changes will be toward increasing investment. A pessimistic owner will want heavy cuts, discarding all but what commands the highest price (as pulp wood in Saxony). In Saxony they did not rely on an increase in stumpage; in the Black Forest they did and have accumulated timber capital. Again, Saxony's method has created their highest present values and they

have the highest present returns on their invested capital (which is relatively small). In Saxony, neither the demand nor the price of large logs has increased. The rise has been greatest for the small material and hence Saxony has reaped and continues to reap today the highest returns, while the Black Forest has the highest value in forest capital with the smallest returns.

The larger logs are sawn into lumber at the mills, in or near the forest, while most of the other forest products, such as poles, mine props, railroad ties, Christmas trees and plup wood are assembled at a railroad station for shipment to centers of consumption of such products.

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FOR SERVICE ABROAD

LIFFORD R. PETTIS, Superintendent of State Forests, has been appointed a recruiting officer for a regiment of woodsmen and mill workers to be sent abroad for early service in France. The regiment will form a part of the Engineer's Reserve Corps and is being organized at the request of the Allies.

The duty of the regiment will be to get out timber needed by the armies, such as railroad ties, trench timbers, mine props, bridge timbers, lumber and cord wood. It is to be in every sense a handpicked regiment, capable of carrying to the forests of France the best traditions of the American lumber woods.

HE following information regarding the New England Mill Units for service in the United Kingdom has been obtained from Mr. W. R. Brown, of the Berlin Mills Co., Berlin, N. H., to whom the organization of the Units was entrusted.

June 12, 1917.-"The expedition will start in about a week, and we have the ten mills purchased and four extra ones donated; most of the equipment is in storage in a freight shed near Boston; the horses are purchased and awaiting shipment, and we have selected a considerable part of the men out of one thousand applications which have come in.

"Downing P. Brown, who has been mill superintendent for us at La Tuque, P. Q., is going over at the head of the expedition, and E. C. Hirst, State Forester of New Hampshire, will be Assistant General Manager.

"Each of the six New England States has raised $12,000-($72,000), and the balance of $48,000 is pretty much all in from private lumber concerns. The State Department at Washington has agreed to furnish the passports for the men and exemptions from draft service for those who are within military age, and the expedition will go on an English vessel probably from Boston. The members all hire out with the British Consul General in Boston before starting, for one year. What part of the United Kingdom they will go to has not been decided as yet."

June 27th-Associated Press Despatch-"New England woodsmen reach England today."