ed more careful cutting and set out certain
plantations. The great landowners everywhere cared for their timber in
their private parks, and cut only when necessary. At the beginning of
the eighteenth century planting was begun in Scotland and later in
Ireland, and it is interesting to note that now the planted areas exceed
the natural growth in these two countries. Foreign trees were also
introduced at this time, and in many cases flourished even better than
the natural growths.

III--PRESENT CONDITIONS ABROAD

Practically now every civilized country practises forestry in a greater
or less degree. Germany has nine schools where it is taught, and there
are four and a half billion acres under government care. France is
equally careful, and every forest is guarded, though its schools are not
as many. England has a forest policy which calls for the planting of
nine million acres, ten thousand each year. Russia has such enormous
forests that as yet the care of her trees does not seem to her
critically important, yet she too is beginning to conserve her
resources. Italy has been almost stripped of her forests by neglect, but
she is at last waking to her peril and beginning to foster what is left.
In India an interesting work is being done by the English, who are
establishing schools for the natives to teach forestry; this in time
will make the country far more fertile than now. New Zealand, always
progressive, has a well-planned system; Argentine, Hawaii, and Terra del
Fuego practise the science.

IV--THE PAST IN AMERICA

Forestry was begun at home by one man, Jared Eliot of Salisbury,
Connecticut, who in 1730 began to cut his trees systematically for
charcoal furnaces. But unfortunately no one followed in his footsteps
because our forests were so rich that it did not seem necessary;
thirty-six per cent. of all our area is in trees. This fact has made us
reckless; whole hillsides have been constantly stripped by farmers for
wood, or to make arable land. Great trees have been cut down when
smaller ones would have done quite as well. Worst of all, the lumbermen
of the Middle West and South have swept clean enormous areas of land,
cutting down large and small pines alike, and leaving nothing but
stumps.

Even more destructive have been the forest-fires which have sprung up
through carelessness or drouth, and suffered to burn unhindered till
they died out. As late as 1910 twenty-five million dollars' worth of
natural t