VI
THE ARTIFICIAL FORESTS OF EUROPE
TO some of us, in this age of travel, the forests of Europe have become as familiar as our own. As scenic objects they have their faults and their excellences. While we appreciate their order and neatness, and the beautiful effects that may arise out of the subordination of all components of the forest to one main purpose, we Americans always miss in them the freshness of nature.
These forests, as they now stand, are the result of a long-continued application of the scientific principles of forestry, under special conditions, to the European forests of old. Having referred repeatedly to forestry itself, I now purpose, to the extent which a single chapter will permit, to explain the sources of beauty, or the absence of it, in these artificial forests. I shall thus place in contrast with our own, which are just beginning to undergo a new process of development, those of Europe, which have long been subjected to one in many respects similar.
The importance of forests had long been understood by the people of Europe. The relation which they held to civilized life, both in a material way and otherwise, led, more than a century ago, to a systematic and scientific treatment. It was realized that these forests might be made perpetual, and so might furnish a constant supply of useful material; that they economized and regulated the flow of mountain streams, which are always of great importance to the agricultural lands of subjacent regions; that they held in place the loose soil of the slopes, thus averting avalanches and ruinous floods; that they broke the force of the winds, tempered and purified the air, and I may add, inspired man with better and happier thoughts.
For these reasons the people of Europe determined to guard their forests well, and to aid nature, if possible, in becoming still more useful to man. To this end they made a careful study of the life history of the forest, and investigated the requirements of the trees and their rates of growth under varying conditions of soil, heat, light, and moisture. They also studied the numerous dangers to which the forest is exposed, and invented means and established laws for its protection. In short, they effected an ingenious adjustment between the needs of the forest and the requirements of man, and in course of time laid the foundations for a new system that was destined to be of great importance to the economic interests of nations.
Many sciences were involved in the solution of these questions. With the progress in means and methods the aims and objects of the new profession gradually grew to be more and more clearly defined, and knowledge and experience ultimately evolved the new science of forestry. To the forester were finally intrusted the reëstablishment, protection and preservation, the improvement, the regulation, the management and administration, as well as the final cutting, of the forest.
Such interference with the work of nature ultimately affected its aspect. In the long life of the forest the changes were slow, but in course of time the stamp of artificiality was impressed upon it, and the imprint of nature’s own countenance was taken away. To an American, if he has seen a little of our wildness, a great charm is wanting in the artificial forests of Europe. The sun does not seem to set naturally, but to hide behind roads and houses. It may be a lifelike and harmonious scene, but it does not speak as deeply and expressively as our wilder woods. The necessity of it is thrust upon you. It seems, at times, as if the free will and perfect liberty of the air and rain, of the wind, were wanting.
These forests are crossed by roads and are often divided into sections of distinct age, kind, and appearance. Shrubs, if any, are few. The deer’s track is known. The history of these trees is known and recorded, and even their doom is fixed for a near or distant day.
There is, however, another side to this question. Through their very design and fitness for an intended object the effects that are produced are often decidedly pleasing. What these effects are will now appear from an examination of the four different types or classes that constitute at present the artificial forests of Europe.
The type of artificial forest that differs least from our own eastern woods is one that has received the name of “selection forest.” It constitutes a transition to the more complex forms. As in our own case, trees of different kinds and of various sizes are intermingled in the forest; but the European forest has more uniformity than ours, and expresses a conceived purpose. This is readily explained by the fact that from the beginning of the new method the trees were never removed indiscriminately from the wooded area, but that a careful selection was made from time to time of certain kinds, according to size and usefulness. Useful material, however, was not the sole consideration. The cutting was intended also to improve the conditions of growth for the trees that remained standing, and to increase the proportion of the species that were most useful or desirable. Finally, by opening up the forest to a proper degree of sunlight, the way was prepared for the germination of seeds that might fall from the old trees, in order to provide early for a new generation in the forest.
It will be readily understood, I believe, that in course of time such a forest would betray to the eye a certain gradation in the sizes of the trees, and a fixed proportion in the number of those belonging to one or another species. To this extent the selection forests differ from our second-growth woods of the East; and yet, as compared to the other three European types, their principal merit, esthetically, is their naturalness. Though very different from our virgin forests, they nevertheless possess the variety, cheerfulness, and interesting play of light and shade that have been noted in an earlier chapter. In Germany they are usually somewhat precise and trim in appearance; but in France and elsewhere they look a little wilder, and are often enlivened with holly or ivy, some sportive raspberry, or other gay shrub or vine. In European countries where forestry has become thoroughly established this type of forest has gradually disappeared, or has diminished greatly in proportion, in order to make way for the other more highly developed forms.
The young forest growth that goes by the name of “coppice” is linked to the preceding kind by the association of time, for it is also one of the old forms. The sound of the word brings to mind the copses of England, those sportive little thickets that we may have read about, or seen running along the streams, or straggling over the hills. But the coppice of Germany or France is not quite the same as the copse of England. It is a young forest of businesslike aspect, in which a design for usefulness is unmistakable. The purpose in it is to reap an approximately equal harvest each year, such as firewood from beeches, hornbeams, or the like, withes from willows, charcoal from chestnut, or tanbark from oak.
The means to accomplish the end are very simple. Only one kind of tree composes the coppice, and the forest is graded in sections, each a year older than the preceding. It is like a series of blocks, in which each is a little taller than the last. The tallest falls by the ax, and the next the following year, and so through the series till the cycle is completed, when it may be resumed as before. The repetition is possible because a tree is chosen for this kind of forest that will renew itself by naturally sprouting from the stump that is always left after cutting.
The coppice woods must be seen to appreciate their charm. They have a distinct flavor and a character that one easily remembers after a first acquaintance. Not too far removed from the town or village, yet often hidden in some secluded part of the hills, we find the coppice a neat-looking place. The small wood that has been cut is carefully stacked along the roadside in bundles or cords. Within one of the sections we see the wood-cutters at work with their axes and bill-hooks, and can fancy them trudging home contentedly at the close of day. We find the rabbits taking the coppice for their own, sporting about and wearing tracks in the thickets. A quiet place, and homelike withal. We can look out above the thicket of young trees at the sky and the older environing woods. The sounds come mellowed through the distance to this open spot, as of the heavy ax in the large woods, or the song of some woman in the far valley.
We have no coppice woods just like these in America. Our willow farms are the only ones that have been subjected to a system like the one described, and these are entirely too low to be called woods. They are graded in size and age from one to four years, and separated into blocks, just like the willow coppices of Germany. At a distance the lithe stems with diminutive tufts of foliage at the top, standing in straight rows, almost as dense as grain, have more the appearance of an agricultural product than a tree farm.
The Christmas tree plantations, a kind of forest gardening, as it were, remind us of the coppice in appearance, but cannot truly be called such. As the conifers that furnish us with Christmas trees are not capable of sprouting from the stump, the growers must depend upon planting for their propagation, which is a principle directly opposed to the idea of coppice.
Throughout the Eastern States there is an abundance of broadleaf stump-sprout thickets, which have come by inheritance to the ground from which their progenitors were removed by the wood-cutter’s ax. While some of these approach nearly to the European coppices in intention, they do not bear out the resemblance sufficiently for a comparison. They lack their system and structure, though they depend upon the same power of reproduction for their existence. Nevertheless, they have their own charm. I remember one, at the edge of a tall forest, in which the sprouts were composed of oak, beech, hickory, tulip tree, dogwood, haw, and a few pine saplings, all of which formed a dense thicket of young trees. In summer it was pleasant to thread one’s way through this place, quite concealed by the straight young growth, or to lie down there and listen for a whole morning to the twitterings and songs of birds, shut in by a wealth of foliage.
There is another type of European forest known as “coppice under standards.” This is no more than a coppice growing underneath a selection forest somewhat different in aspect from the one already described. In the present case the selection forest is opener, the trees being fewer in number. Ample light is thus admitted for the growth of the coppice beneath. The appearance of the whole is that of an open forest into which the younger thickets have penetrated.
The esthetic effect of this combination may be described in very few words. While the coppice loses much of its charm, the overspreading forest gains something by this sacrifice. The former keeps the soil in fair and fresh condition, thus insuring a healthy growth to the large trees. It also shades the lower portions of their trunks, in consequence of which many of them develop into clean specimens, with strong, well-rounded stems, and graceful, wide-spreading crowns.
The last of the four types, the “high forest,” is the most artificial and highly developed of the series. In its construction it is in some respects like the coppice; for, as in that type, there is a uniformity of size in the trees on restricted areas, and the species that compose the entire forest are very limited in number. Coniferous high forests, which are the most common, are often composed of only a single kind of tree, and broadleaf forests of the same type rarely contain more than two or three species. These forests, like the coppice, comprise a full complement of sizes and ages, each confined to a separate section; but the steps are not single years, as in the coppice, but periods of ten or twenty years, or even more; so that the high forest, above all, is a much taller and older one. The sections that compose it are not regular in outline, except in certain forests on flats and levels, nor do they necessarily lie side by side in the consecutive order of size and age. Finally, the high forest also differs from the coppice in the manner of its origin; for, while the former owes its existence to seedlings that have grown up spontaneously, or been sown or planted, the coppice is a young forest that has sprouted from the stumps of trees that have been cut.
A “High Forest” of Spruce in Saxony
Thus the high forest, while it may be compared with the coppice in its construction, is yet in certain respects so different from it as to convey a very distinct impression. I here disregard the younger portions of the forest, for, in the light of the present discussion, they are merely preparatory to the mature forest, destined to be useful only after the completeness of age. In the older portions the one distinguishing characteristic is simple dignity. To this one quality all other points of excellence or beauty conform and adjust themselves. The young tree or the casual shrub that may have found its way into the company of the centenarians, is welcome; but the absorbing interest lies in the noble grandeur of the old trees that have grown up together. Some, under the influence of better soil or more light, have done better than others; but they are all sound and stately trees, and together represent the best product of the forest. Long ago other trees that grew in their midst, but were less promising, were removed for the sake of these. Under their continuous roof of foliage there is a cool, deep shade. The ground is scattered with fern, or covered with deep beds of leaves, or with the glossy needles of the conifers. If the forest has originated from seeds borne by a generation of trees that previously occupied the same spot, and the seeds germinated here and there and sprouted into a new forest upon the removal of the old, we shall now find the trees distributed in natural positions. Where, however, the new forest has been planted, which is often the case with the conifers, the trees stand in close rank and file, and we walk among their columns as in natural aisles and corridors. Here there is hardly a shrub to shut out the gloomy distance, and only at intervals a stray intruder with exceptional powers of shade endurance, a dwarfed yew tree, or a beech with refined, fan-like spray, comes into notice in the vista.
If these are some of the changes that are wrought in forests through the application of a new science, if, through forestry in Europe, one kind of beauty has passed away and another kind has been called forth, will our own forests, it may be asked, undergo in time similar alterations? We cannot doubt that they will grow more artificial; but under the modified application of the science of forestry to our own conditions, so different from those of Europe, the esthetic changes to be looked for would be difficult to predict. Nor would these changes be predetermined, but, on the contrary, would depend very largely upon chance. It should be noted that forestry and landscape art are distinct; that the former, ordinarily, is not affected by the latter, and has its own ends and aims—those of material usefulness. I say ordinarily, because there are circumstances under which forestry might, with slight modifications and without a compromise to its own interests, adjust itself to some of the principles of landscape art. Indeed, this possible adjustment has been a subject of interest in Germany for more than twenty years, and the feasibility of a relationship between landscape art and forestry has been practically demonstrated by a noted German forester, Herr Heinrich von Salisch, on his own estates. This gentleman has applied to them the practical methods of approved forestry under such modifications as his experience and taste suggested, and has thereby not only made his forest profitable, but also more beautiful than it was before.[7]
With respect to our own forests it may be asserted that most of the private forest holdings of the United States, and probably all our national forest reserves,[8] as such, are destined primarily to serve purposes of utility, and very often to serve such purposes only. There are, however, a number of large forest estates owned by individuals, and some belonging to commonwealths and municipalities, which are esteemed as highly for their scenic character as for their material value, and pass in the public mind as emphatically under the name of parks as they occur to it in the light of financial investments. Such, for instance, are the Adirondack State Park and several large private forest estates in the same region, as well as certain large tracts of exceptionally beautiful forest in the western part of North Carolina and about the head waters of the Mississippi, which have now for some time attracted wide attention as desirable public possessions.
In such forests as these, esthetic considerations might suggest certain departures from the ordinary methods of forestry. Some people apparently wish to go further, and believe that certain portions of these tracts should remain entirely undisturbed, in order that their primeval character may be preserved for the enjoyment of all future generations.
The idea of a forest park, intact and inviolable, calls to mind our national parks of the West, which were actually established by Congress for that very purpose. Possessing, as they do, wonders of nature and exceptional scenery, these parks have been thought worthy of preservation solely for their own sakes. This difference in intention chiefly distinguishes them from the national reserves; so that, while the latter stand for the material benefit of the nation—whether it be directly, in the value of the timber, or indirectly, through the influence of the forest on the flow of streams—the value of the parks, on the other hand, speaks out of their own countenance. Their merit consists in the influence of beauty and sublime scenery on the moral state of man. They are healthful, vigorous breathing-places, where noise and smoke and harassing cares are laid aside.
It is well to bear this distinction in mind, because it appears not to be clearly recognized. While the reserves do not necessarily exclude some of the special advantages of the parks, their value lies, above all, in their stores of wealth. In this connection it may be said, for instance, that the designation “Adirondack Park,” that is currently applied to the State forest of northern New York, is a somewhat misleading expression; for, although its beauty is well known and appreciated and the State Constitution at present even forbids any cutting within its limits, yet the most competent judges believe that the Adirondack forest is exceedingly well fitted for the purposes of practical forestry. Indeed, several private tracts within that region already constitute the best known examples of practical forestry in our country. If, however, it is intended to separate certain portions from the remainder, either within this region or that of the proposed Minnesota reserve, and to preserve these for their unique or exceptional character, these segregated tracts are parks in themselves, and should so be called.
But the identity of our five national parks in the farther West is unmistakable; and these would appear to suggest neither forestry proper, nor landscape forestry, nor even landscape art. In them nature speaks for herself. The tasteful and well judged construction of roads and trails that shall be in harmony with the scenes through which they pass, or, better still, that shall be as unobtrusive as possible, is evidently a necessity if the parks are to be enjoyed by large numbers of people. In exceptional cases the ax may be needed for the very preservation of the forest. But the principal care should be to protect these forests from fire, defacement, and spoliation. For to us and future generations the parks stand, above all, as examples of the glory of our primeval forests.
The groves of big trees in the national parks of California, the geologic wonders of Yellowstone, and the specimens of arctic fauna still living among the matchless glaciers of Mount Rainier, are national possessions of great interest, for whose preservation not only Americans, but distinguished Europeans also, have pleaded. These, then, are ours for their own sakes; but most of our other national forest possessions will undoubtedly have to submit to further development and to the dictates of a sterner necessity.
END
