Book Description

Excerpt from Research Methods in the Study of Forest Environment This bulletin will be concerned wholly with ecological forest studies. 1 To some it may seem strange that the word ecological should be used rather than the more inclusive biological. The choice is a question of aims and objectives. Ecological better expresses the objects of the knowledge foresters seek to gain. The practice of forestry is in a very large degree the application of ecology. As an example, a forester may be only slightly interested in the abstract. Physiological fact that trees require sunlight for their development. This fact is taken as a matter of'course and allowed for. When, however, he finds that one of two species with which he is dealing requires much more sunlight than the other, or, in other words, does not react so readily to the stimulus of sunlight, the forester then finds a keen interest, because it is a practical interest, in this ecological factor and its relations. Or, again, the matter may be expressed in this way: The forester, in dealing with'a given species, feels that he is dealing with a bio logical entity whose characters he may know minutely or generally but which he can not change, except possibly through long-term breeding. On the other hand, the environment of this entity can to a considerable degree be controlled, and its reactions to changes in environment can be observed. His concern is therefore not with the physiological functioning in relation to a given environment. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.