In a volume entitled Reports on Forest Management in Germany, Colonel Campbell- Walker has said: — ' The main object aimed at in any system of scientific forestry is, in the first instance, the conversion of any tract or tracts of natural forests, which generally contain trees of all ages and descriptions, young and old, good and bad, growing too thickly in one place and too thinly in another, into what is termed in German, a geschlossener Bestand (close or compact forest), consisting of trees of the better descriptions, and of the same age or period, divided into blocks, and capable of being worked, i.e., thinned out, felled, and reproduced or replanted, in rotation, a block or part of a block being taken in hand each year. In settling and carrying out such a system, important considerations and complications present themselves, such as the relation of the particular block, district, or division, to the whole forest system of the province; the requirements of the people not only as regards timber and firewood, but straw, litter, and leaves for manure and pasturage; the geological and chemical formation and properties of the s jil; and the situation as regards the prevailing winds, on which the felling must always depend, in order to decrease the chances of damage to a minimum; measures for precautions against fires, the ravages of destructive insects, trespass, damage, or theft by men and cattle. All these must be taken into consideration and borne in mind at each successive stage. Nor must it be supposed that when once an indigenous forest has been mapped, valued, and working plans prepared, the necessity for attending to all such considerations is at an end. On the contrary, it is found necessary to have a revision of the working plan every ten or twenty years. It may be found advisable to change the crop as in agriculture, to convert a hard wood into a coniferous forest, or vice versa, to replace oak by beech, or to plant up (unter bau) the former with spruce or beech to cover the ground and keep down the growth of grass. All these, and a hundred other details, are constantly presenting themselves for consideration and settlement, and the local forest officer should be ever on the alert to detect the necessity of any change and bring it into notice, and no less than the controlling branch should be prepared to suggest what is best to be done, and be conversant with what has been done, and with what results, under similar circumstances, in other districts and provinces.'
Such is the method of exploitation which was introduced into Poland in 1858 by Baron von Berg; and though there may have been such a degeneration by reversion to older and inferior methods of exploitation, as is intimated by Herr Krause in his Critical Examination of the Forest System of the Kingdom of Poland, the method in its characteristic details is still followed.
AREA, DISTRIBUTION, MANAGEMENT, AND PR.
M. MARNY writes of the forests in Poland: — ' In Poland we meet with only a few forests capable of giving any idea of what was the ancient forest condition of the country. A sample of this may be seen in the forest of Wodwosco, which lies upon the domain of that name, between those of Uraniezko and of Sublowiez. Whilst oue part cleared early in this century offers only a continuation of bushes and thickets, in the midst of which spring up here and there a few alders, maples, or hollies; in that which the hand of man has respected to this day, the forest offers admirably tall trees of oak and beech, mingled with majestic firs. Where the bushes disappear a carpet of moss and heath re-cover the soil. Beyond this the land loses this uniformity, and becomes more broken; a torrent dashes with fracas over the debris of rocks. The trees are crowded together, and their branches are drawn nearer and nearer, forming a dome which the rays of the sun seek in vain to penetrate/
The annual tabulated reports of the area of forests in Poland, and in the different divisions of Poland, vary considerably. This may be attributable in part to one or other, or one or more, or all of the following causes: — Extensive clearings, extensive plantings, and rectifications of estimates by new surveys and accurate measurements.
From a series of these in my possession I give the following, which gives in a tabulated form for 1870 information which may be generally interesting: nimal Revenue from Crown Forests per dec. kopecs.
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