286 



CONSERVATION 



Our forests are now producing not 

 more than twelve cubic feet of wood 

 per acre per year ; Germany's forests 

 are producing forty-eight cubic feet an- 

 nually. In other words, she has re- 

 duced waste and consumption and in- 

 creased production. We have as rapid 

 growing species and as good forest soil 

 as Germany has. Shall we fail in meet- 



ing our problem? I do not think so. 

 As admirably stated by the President, 

 the conservation of natural resources 

 means "the application of common 

 sense to common problems for the com- 

 mon good." 



(Read at annual meeting of National As- 

 sociation of Box Manufacturers, Chatta- 

 nooga, Tenn., February 23, 1909.) 



AIMLESS TREE SLAUGHTER 



By M, E, BAKER 



T 



HERE was a man who lived in 

 New England, whose name was 

 Legion. Nine-tenths of the time 

 he tilled his land and mended stone 

 fences, like a moral and intelligent be- 

 ing; and the tenth part of the time a 

 madness came upon him — an hereditary 

 madness. He remembered subcon- 

 sciously how his ancestors wrested the 

 soil from the forests, and did battle 

 with the foes that lurked in their 

 depths, and he seized his ax and went 

 forth to take vengeance upon the forest, 

 for the hostile front it showed his eld- 

 ers. But the forest was gone, and the 

 only soil he could find to wrest was 

 beside the town roads, on either hand. 

 This, then, he fell upon with right good 

 will. There were oaks, and these he 

 cut down, waste fully two feet from the 

 ground and scattered their branches 

 about. There were walnuts and birches 

 and beeches, and he felled them all, and 

 hewed them into bits. There was red 

 cedar, with its priceless worth, and its 

 heart of fragrance and this he hacked 

 and haggled and utterly destroyed. 

 Then he looked upon what he had done. 



and called it very good, and the mad- 

 ness left him. He never returned j:o 

 finish clearing up the roadside. He 

 never covered the bared rocks, or lev- 

 eled the ragged banks. The ground 

 bristled with stubble of trees, and their 

 boughs rotted where they fell. 



The only times when the man re- 

 visited the roadside were when he cast 

 old stovepipes and broken china, in a 

 heap, a few hundred yards from his 

 dwelling. 



What shall be done for the madness 

 of this man? He is not to be greatly 

 frighted with droughts or floods, and 

 he has no regard in his heart for the 

 landscape. He does not desire shade 

 trees. Would legislation avail for his 

 cure, or psycho-therapy, or beating 

 with many stripes? If this last were 

 done speedily, there are still birches left 

 by the roadsides wherewith to do it. 

 But if he is not restrained before long, 

 New England will be. here and there 

 among its towns, in like condition with 

 Japan, which has no need to make laws 

 to protect its birds, because the birds 

 are all slaughtered. 



