104
AGRICULTURE OX TlIE RHINE.
soil and climate, such as the author of this table assumes,
to about the ninetieth year ; the increment is less after that
period, but the value of timber of so large a size as a tree
attains in IOO or 120 years is proportionately greater than
at an earlier period ; hence, up to 120, it is more profit-
able to leave the aged trees, if sound, than it would be to
Supplantthem by a younger stock. This is still moιe
applicable as a rule for oaks, the size of which is so
important for machinery, that a thickness of a few inches
with sufficient length of trunk often makes a difference in
the value of the tree of thirty to fifty per cent.
The fourth column shows the disposable quantity of
timber, brushwood, and branches that the forester, under
usual circumstances, can draw at the several periods in-
dicated in the first column from a morgen of land. As
however the seasons, the destructive effects of insects,
and incidental circumstances make the precise period of
felling a matter of local calculation, while the state of
the market occasionally hastens or retards the operation,
the profit or loss is materially affected by the forester’s
judgment in availing himself of all advantages. In se-
lecting the trees to be felled, he must know the qualities
of each individually, as a farmer studies the peculiarities
of his beasts. Some trees are of more rapid growth than
others ; these arc of course left as long as this quality
shows itself, and such as have increased but little in
bulk between two periods of felling are selected as the
first disposable. A forester who loves his task is thus in
constant converse with nature, and it is common to find
men in the forest department more enthusiastically at-
tached to their profession than in almost any other branch
of the public service. The feeling thus awakened is
Agricllture on the kπine.
105
akin to, but still very different from, that love of trees
which is common in England, but which attaches only
to the appearance and picturesque grouping of iso-
lated trees or plantations. It is at the same time more
matter of fact, and is based upon more correct -views of
natural history ; in a word, it is much more practical,
while the English taste is more sentimental. This love
of trees is confined in Germany to those whose studies
and occupations give them the means of being constantly
in contact with the verdant ornaments of the mountain
and the valley. The fine specimens of planting must in
Germany be sought in remote districts ; they arc not se-
lected and thrown into full relief by the disposition of a
park or the shape of a lawn, and are consequently not
universally accessible. AVc would, however, recommend
to such of our travellers as may be interested in forest
cultivation, whether at home or in the Colonies, to follow
the methods now in general practice in Germany ; and
although we shall give as much information as can be
condensed into a general view like that which is the
object of this volume, yet it will not render the know-
ledge that can be more agreeably acquired in conversa-
tion from practical men, and confirmed by observations
taken on the spot, the less necessary.
The forests of Rhenish Prussia, although covering so
vast an area as we have described, afford on neither
bank of the Rhine such splendid specimens of woodland
vegetation as the Odenwald near Darmstadt or the
Rlack Forest in the Grand Duchy of Baden. The rapid
accumulation of the population in the manufacturing dis-
tricts on the Lower Rhine, and the careless or wasteful
forest management during the period of the French occu-