FORESTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. Forestry is the intelligent management of woodlands to serve some definite purpose. Three distinct types of forests result from working toward as many different objects, each legitimate, and serving the country's needs.
1. The Supply Forest is managed upon a commercial basis. Its object is the production of wood, and Nature's resources are bent to this end. How to get the highest grade of lumber of the best kinds, in the greatest quantity and at the lowest cost on a given area and in a given time—these are the problems of the supply forest. At the same time, the aim is to improve the condition of the forest and to make it permanent and self sustaining in a physical as well as a commercial sense, paying good returns for the cost of its maintenance. Such complex problems tax the judgment of the wisest men. Action, positive and aggressive, is demanded in the supply forest. Beside it, other types of forestry seem negative.
2. The Protective Forest is maintained to regulate waterflow on mountain slopes—the headwaters of streams upon which the fertility of the lowlands depends. These forests check tendencies to flooding in the early spring and consequent drought in summer. They prevent destructive erosion of sloping ground and damaging soil deposits in the valleys. Such are many of the state and national reserve forests, including those that hoard the water for irrigation ditches in California and other Western states. Water companies of great cities maintain such forest covers over the sources of their supplies.
Protective forests may be maintained especially as wind breaks in regions subject to damaging winds, hot or cold. Bodies of trees that drink up stagnant water, thus draining swamps and reducing malarial troubles, may also properly be designated as protective. Those whose balsamic exhalations improve climate are in this class. ' 3. The Luxury Forest ministers to the asthetic and spiritual 455 • needs of humanity and to their love of sport. It furnishes recreation, physical and mental, to all. The Park Reservations belonging to city, state and nation are such. The Yosemite, Grand Canon and Yellowstone are our most famous national parks. In the lower Appalachians there will soon be set aside
another to be kept as Nature will keep it for the people of the whole country. The Adirondacks contain a New York state park, and other states have similar reserves belonging to all the people. The Metropolitan Park System of Boston is the best illustration in this country of a chain of parks and timber reserva tions belonging to a city, and devoted to the recreation and uplifting of its whole population. These parks are a refuge for wild flowers that agriculture has exterminated, and for wild birds that towns have driven out. They are the precious heritage of the people and should never pass out of their hands.
The Game Preserve is a second type of recreation forest. It ministers to primitive human instincts—love of pure wildness and the freedom of outdoor life, and that stronger love for hunting and fishing.
National parks and reservations are open to hunters, with certain restrictions. Smaller tracts are owned and maintained by clubs or individuals. Such game preserves, fenced against the public, and in charge of wardens the year around, are found in the Adirondacks and in other Eastern mountains, and along the coast where wild fowl are the chief attraction. In the shooting and fishing season these tracts are visited by the owners and their friends. For the joys of this period great preparations are made. Lakes and streams are stocked with fish, and not uncommonly big game and wild fowl are introduced to increase the number and variety of game in the park.
Mixed forests are best for game of all kinds. Broad-leaved trees furnish better coverts for beasts and birds than conifers do. They have denser undergrowth, and they sprout from stumps and from the roots—a rare thing among evergreens. This young growth furnishes important forage for herbivorous animals in winter and summer. Browsing is their chief living. They do not like the resin of the evergreens, as they do the succulent twigs and inner bark of poplar and birch and maples. The buds and the various tree fruits—berries and oily nuts and starchy seeds—are the winter store of birds and many of the smaller woods folk.