may finally be cut down when they have reached the age of four-score years, but often not before they have attained the age of 150 years, the average forest cycle being 120 years.

One of the central ideas of forestry is that the average yearly cut in an entire forest district shall be equal to the average yearly growth. This is determined by a forest survey, which is taken every ten years. During the succeeding ten years, only the amount added during the previous period may be removed, one-tenth of

common woodsman, becomes an expert, since his employment becomes a life occupation.

After the trees are cut down, they are stripped of their bark and are then ready to be classified according to species, size, and grade of lumber. The pines fall into five classes, the first class having a length of at least sixty feet, and a diameter of at least a foot at the smaller end, while the fifth grade must be at least twentyfive feet in length and 2 inches in diameter. The price of the first grade is usually about

this amount being cut each year. This rule applies not only to the royal forest, but also to the forests of a local community over which the state has general control. In thus limiting the amount of timber removed to the growth during a given period, several points are gained: It preserves to the state and community a perpetual forest; it furnishes constant employment to a large and definite number of people; every phase of forestry becomes a science; and every individual, from the chief official to the

$5, and that of the fifth grade $3, per cubic yard. Hard wood is, of course, more valuable, the first grade selling as high as $18 per cubic yard. The royal forest of the entire state of Würtemberg approximates a net revenue of 3 per cent. based upon forest valuation, while in the little community of Baiersbronn the net profit is 5 per cent. annually, portions of the district yielding even 8 per cent. Stated in other terms, this particular forest district, which consists of 20,000 acres, produces an

annual yield of $10 per acre from the forest alone, and furnishes constant employment to at least 500 men. The granite quarried from the hillside and used for the highways requires another army of laborers, while teamsters find constant employment in transporting the logs from the forest clearings to the saw-mills situated along the swift-running streams in the valley.

It would be indeed difficult to find a better example of industrial economy than is here exhibited. Destructive lumbering is unknown, and the enemies such as forest fires, overgrazing, and thieves-which play havoc in the American forest, are carefully guarded against by a watchful and efficient body of officials. There is system from beginning to end, and that system has long since been reduced to a science which is being constantly perfected by the

coöperation of the forestry schools throughout the empire.

I could not help admiring the far-sighted philanthropy of the state, carried on through these industrious woodsmen, as we paused on our return from the forest at a little saw-mill where a teamster was unloading giant logs, while Uncle Fritz fittingly concluded his instructions in my first lesson in forestry; this completed the forest cycle, as far as the woodsmen were concerned. The trees, planted by one generation, cared for by the next, and cut down by a third, were now to be sawed into lumber and shipped to all parts of the empire, and even to foreign lands. These monarchs which have graced the forest for a century may now be used to adorn the palace of a prince or king, or may shelter the humble peasant among his native hills, not far from where they grew.

JACOB H. SCHIFF

III

BY

He was a broker, and a broker is almost by nature a gambler, perhaps the very last profession suitable for a railway manager. In character, he was strongly marked by his disposition for silent intrigue. He preferred, as a rule, to operate on his own account, without admitting other persons into his confidence, and he seemed never to be satisfied except when deceiving every one as to his intentions. There was a reminiscence of the spider in his nature. He spun huge webs in

corners and in the dark."

I

N THESE words, briefly, Charles Francis Adams wrote, in 1870, his impression of the man who was to be the president and manager of the Union Pacific, Jay Gould. At this moment, they apply with full force to the present master of the Union Pacific, Mr. Edward H. Harriman.

There is this difference: Most of the webs that he has woven are no longer in the corners. They stretch far out across the open. They are so strong and great that neither men, nor states, nor banded powers have as yet been cole to destroy them.

Less than nine years ago, the master-spinner began to weave a web of railroad power. In the sweep of the first few concentric rings lay the old Union Pacific-not so very glorious a prey. On it the spinner fattened and grew strong, to spin yet other circles. A little labor, and lo! within the still narrow sweep of the web lay the Oregon System, the Chicago & Alton, the Kansas City Southern. The corner grew cramped. The great mechanic stretched far out across the continent, and fastened upon San Francisco a single arm of the woof of the web. The circles grew greater. By the end of 1905, they held the whole of the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific, the Oregon lines, the San Pedro, safe against assault from without or struggle from within. The first few filmy threads had wound about the Santa Fé. Only the mighty hands of Hill and Morgan

WM. ROCKEFELLER

had saved the Burlington and the Northern Pacific.

If this was a mighty web, think of the web that he spins to-day! Far down to the Gulf, threading the Mississippi Valley, lie the thick meshes. Within their folds struggles the Illinois Central, great, powerful, rich. And all its greatness, power, riches, serve but to make the hunter keener, and avail not one iota for defense against the spinner of the web. Yet other arms stretch out to grasp the gates of New York, the harbors of Philadelphia and Norfolk. The coils lie entwined about the Baltimore & Ohio, the Delaware & Hudson, the Reading, the Norfolk & Western, the St. Paul, the New York Central, the Santa Fé, the Pennsylvania Railroad. How long will it be before they tighten?

This is the web that Harriman has spun openly and in the sight of all men. Yet others lie in the dark corners. Down in Wall Street he has made a gossamer trap unlike any other that has ever been known, even in that strange canyon where men are supposed to know all the financial tricks of all the ages. In other days, when men would rear great structures, they bought banks, gathered in trust companies, made affiliations with rich private bankers. But Harriman has spun a web all of his own designing. He has a bank that knows no banking law. No bank inspector can call upon it for a statement as to its business. No "call for condition" can force it to reveal its doings as of any certain date. It has no troublesome reserve regulation. The last time it made a full report it showed that it had loaned money in Wall Street and elsewhere to the extent of $35,000,000. At the present time, it is supposed to have in its possession funds and stocks that can be used as collateral amounting to well over $150,000,000.

The examination before the Interstate Com

time nor in what manner it may sell them again. The president-chairman, Mr. Harriman, has powers absolutely autocratic on this point. He may pledge the credit of the company at whatever time he pleases for the raising of money. Never before has so gigantic a machine lain in the hands of a single man in Wall Street.

Once more-it is the Union Pacific Railroad. About its bursting treasury cluster still other treasuries, the Wells Fargo Express Company and bank, the treasury of the Illinois Central, of the Southern Pacific, and of other corporations it were better not to name. The strands of this web are strands of gold, woven upon a woof of credit-the strangest and the most marvelous credit in the corporation world of the United States. The circle of the web lies around about the whole financial world. Men tremble when they contemplate the results that would follow in Wall Street were the president of the Union Pacific to decide to call a the loans on one particular day. In the hands of the spinner of this web lies the power to create panic, to bring upon Wall Street the tempest of destruction.

Still darker lies a smaller web, yet equally as dangerous. One arm of it lies coiled about