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title, "Reaping where we have not sown,"
emphasises the difference between the old
extravagant way of cutting down forests
and the modern method of treatment as
laid down by the most experienced
authorities on the subject. "The chief
difference betwen the old style lumber-
man and the forester is that the one re
gards the forst as a speculation, the other
as an investment. The old method is to
fell all the big sound treets of a desirable
species in a forest without regard to
their surroundings; withdrawing the ne-
cessary shelter from a crop of seedlings
in one place, killing others in the fall
and removal of the timber; here felling
all the seed trees so that there will be
no reproduction, there clearing the way
for a worthless species that will promptly
choke out the valuable ones; cutting the
best sections from the fallen timber and
leaving the tops and boughs and parts of
the trunks to dry and rot and clutter
the forest floor with highly inflammable
rubbish. Old style lumbering started in
incontinently with axe. Conserva-
tive lumbering begins with a working
plan, which is a compromise between the
forest and the market. For every tract
of lumber the nature and habits of the
forest and thedistance and requirement
of the market present a new problem;
the forester must devise and follow a
fresh policy that will combine the largest
returns and smallest expenses with the
greatest productiveness of his forest." It
is obvious that some portion of this
criticism fails to apply in the case of
forests like our own, where, as
we have seen, the natural
rate of reproduction is inor-
dinately slow. But the facts I have
cited should help us to appreciate the
possibility of cutting out timber with
the minimum of risk and injury to the
surviving trees. But valuable as the
results of conservation on these lines
may be, they do not represent any at-
tempt to increase our existing supply of
timber; and for an adequate remedy for
the growing scarcity and dearness of tim-
ber the world must look to some system
of replacing old trees as they are destroy-
ed or of planing new forest that will
some day take the place of the indigenous
bush. Thus we pass naturally from Con-
servation to the most important topic
we have still to consider.

REFORESTATION AND AFFORESTA-
TION.

The idea of planign new forests to re-
place the old ones as they are cut down
is by no means a latter-day novelty. Swit-
zerland had something like a forest sys-
tem a thousand years ago, and by the
fifteenth century she had developed
highly practical and scientific methods
of forestry. France, Germany and Italy
have drown State forests for centuries
past, either to check the devastating ef-
fects of erosion or to replenish a failing
timber supply, or, while combining these
purposes, to secure a revenue from an
investment of a portion of the national
capital. And these countries have suc-
ceeded in their experiments with great
and permanent financial gain to them-
seleves, for the reason that a forest pro-
perly administered on scientific lines is
much more productive and valuable than
a wild forest. "A large proportion of
the trees in a wild forest," says Mr. A.
W. Page, "are not best suited to our use.
They are of the wrong species like weeds
in a garden, or they are too old or
crooked, and have a variety of toher
blemishes; and while doing but little good
themselves, they prevent the growth of
better timber." It is therefore open to
us either to work through the original
growth rapidly, and then plant a new
forest on the devastated area--a course
which has been followed on a large scale
in Germany; to to turn the wild forests
into cultivated timber preserves, as has
been largely the practice in France. I
now propose briefly to refer tot he suc-
cess that has ttended the efforts of
government in other countries to
establish State forests, the means they
have taken to ensure their success, and
the outcome of their enterprise regarded
as a financial investment.

FOREST OF EUROPE.

It may throw some light upon the
importance attached to the possession