New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-07-02
PRACTICAL SYLVICULTURE.

For a long time an interest in all those
Subjects grouped together under the COM
prehensive name of forestry has been growing
throughout the country. THIS interest has
been intensified by the startling bulletins
from the Census Office. The popular demand
will soon be peremptory that something snail
be done to arrest the destruction of the ma
tional wealth and disturbance of that harmony
and balance among natural forces which pro-
tect against floods and dr0uths and disaster to
life, health and property. Aid will be sought
from the Federal Government, from State
Legislatures, from the great landholding cor
porations, and from private landowners. All
this is WELL But the danger is that the in
terest will be dissipated in windy "Con-
crosses THAT Government instead of enact
ing comnon-sense measures for preserving the
timber on the national domain will exhaust IFS
energies in publishing stupid Forestry Reports
through its Department of Agriculture, or still
worse, will give away its land to encourage tree
planting where no tree will ever grow that
well-meaning gentlemen and ladies IN village
Improvement societies will persuade them
selves that they are insurlng seasOnable ram
falls and permanent timber supply by plant
ing rows of trees here and there along the
roadside.
What is needed just now is not sentiment
nor oratory nor an appropriation, but facts,
knowledge. The popular interest in these
matters requires intelligent direction. In this
part of the country, for example, prudence
dictates that the forests which we have should
be iealously preserved, and chat other cleared
land, particularly on mountain tanks, should
(, 1oH ro mn ha 1pmOu-
stratcd TO landowners that ii will pay tc care
for Woodlands that an established forest will
Weld profitable annual crop and grow better
every year; and that the returns from young
woods are not so remote as to make tree plant
ing a discOuragng investment. There Is no
future for our woodlands long as their
owners are convinced that they will lose money
by sylviculture.
One step further. There il no hope for our
woods until our people are better Instructed In
the art of fOrest-culture. Agriculture is not
profitable until it is intelligently conducted,
and we certainly should expect nothing better
from st-farming. The man who raises corn
or cotton has the accumulated experience of
generations to help him, but there is no body
of experience upon which the tree planter can
draw. Since this country was discovered our
predecessors have been devising swiftest
methods for forest determination, but few if
any have left any living and accessible record
of efforts at forest production The lack of
practical popular knowledge on this subject is
almost absolute Our people must he taught
when and where and how and what to plant
and how to care for trees after planting, before
any fuel or timber crop is grown with general
success
THIS train of thought has been suggested by
the notice in another column OF IN experiment
now in progress on the grounds OF the Arnold
Arborctum, Boston. Thousands OF acres of
sickly woodland in the Middle and New England
States are to-day what Professor Sargents
forest was seven years ago. If he does not
succeed, it would BIO wrong TO encourage
planters of more limited experience and
knowledge to make similar trial. Ii he does
succeed, others can, for his methods appear 10
be of the simplest and most easy to be compre-
hended. AT al events, 1t is an effort upon
natured plan, Which will be carried out with