4C2 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



has bought the land from many of these farmers, either the entire farm or 

 part of it. The prices even today range from |3 per acre up and averaged 

 for the entire forest district only |8 per acre. The government now pursues 

 two lines; agriculture and forestry. Every inducement is made to settlers, 

 only the better land is turned over to them and easy payments, low rate of 

 interest, long term loans, etc., all tempts the new comer. And yet, it is forestry 

 which alone can cope with the major part of this situation. Thousands of 

 acres are reforested every year. 



But the most surprising cases one meets in the densely settled, highly 

 improved and well wooded states of South Germany and in Switzerland. Old 

 farms which have well supported their owners for centuries are converted 

 into spruce woods. Old families who have rented their lands for centuries at 

 fair rentals, find it profitable to quit renting and reforest. All through the 

 well-settled farming parks of Switzerland one sees hundreds of spruce and 

 hardwood plantations set out during the last 60 years. The chief forest 

 inspector of Baden, a man of experience, expressed both his surprise and 

 dissatisfaction at these changes. "When I was a young forest official it was 

 almost a daily affair to have to refuse a permit to clear away the forest on 

 certan lands. Today I have to counsel and plead with our people to keep 

 them from planting up good farm lands." 



But why is all this? Simply because the farmer is no longer willing to 

 work for nothing and to go without the comforts of life. He considers farming 

 as any other business is considered. Farm good land, where farming pays, 

 and leave the rest to others and to other uses. 



To us the lesson of the Old World is most significant. With a scarcity 

 of timber before us ; with most of our states now importers of timber at great 

 expense, with food to export and food enough to waste more than we can 

 eat, with all this clearly before us it is an unpardonable fallacy, nay a criminal 

 neglect, that we should go on encouraging the destruction of forests and 

 refuse to encourage their preservation and restoration. 



