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.
Pages:
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570