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over to cultivation. For us the forest is no longer the wilderness out
of which we must force our way into cleared land, but it is a veritable
magnificent safeguard of our most characteristic national life.
Therefore it was that I called it the wild cultivation of the soil in
contrast to the tame cultivation of the field. In our day, to root out
the soil of the forest no longer means making it arable; it simply means
exchanging one form of cultivation for another. He who estimates the
value of the culture of the soil merely according to the percentage of
clear profit accruing from it, will wish to clear forest-land in order
to make it arable. We, however, do not estimate the various forms of
cultivation of the soil only by the standard of their money value, but
also by that of their ideal worth. The fact that our soil is cultivated
in so many various ways is one of the chief causes of our wealth of
individual social organizations, and therefore of the vitality of our
society itself.

The forest represents the aristocratic element in the cultivation of the
soil. Its value consists more in what it represents than in what it
produces and in the profit which it yields. The rich man alone can
afford to manage and cultivate a forest; indeed, often the richest is
not rich enough to do so, and therefore it is just that the State, as
the sum total of the country's wealth, should be the first and largest
forest proprietor. To cultivate the forest solely in the interest of the
contemporary generation is a wretched sort of copse-wood business;
large trees are raised for future generations. Therefore the forest is,
primarily, a subject of national economy and, secondarily, one of
domestic economy. In the forest the interests of the entire nation must
be considered; it must be, as far as possible, equally distributed over
the whole land, for its treasures interfere with the facilities of
traffic. These are thoughts which might make any genuine forest
proprietor proud of his own particular forest.

For the opponents of the conservation of large landed estates the forest
will always be the worst stumbling-block, for it will never be possible
to establish an even apparently successful forestry on a small scale.
Where agriculture is concerned, the advantage of small farming is open
to discussion; but he who would not see the pitifulness of forestry on a
small scale must hold his hands before both eyes. In proportion as
forestry is ca