768 



CONSERVATION 



ticable as a plan for conservation, and if 

 practised, should come only as an inci- 

 dent. As one means of economizing 

 production the lumberman might put 

 up the prices for his better grades, thus 

 widening the market for poorer stock. 

 The use of fiber for packing boxes, 

 which many of the box men have re- 

 garded as inimical to their business, he 

 found not harmful, but beneficial, since 

 it utilizes otherwise waste material and 

 saves good lumber. Here are some 

 further suggestions from Mr. White's 

 address : 



Tracts that are intended for forestry 

 should be registered and exempted from 

 taxation, only as the product is cut for mar- 

 ket. And this law should apply to the 

 farmer with his small wood lot, if he sets 

 it apart for growing trees, as well as to the 

 party having larger holdings. And when the 

 time comes, as it some time will, that it will 

 pay as well to grow trees as to grow other 

 crops, then a new basis of land values ac- 

 cording to adaptability will have come also. 

 But wood will be more valuable. Lumber 

 will be higher. While we will be able to 

 grow stumpage in soft woods at from $io 

 to $12 a thousand under a favorable tax 

 system, yet the lumber from these trees will 

 be inferior to what we have now. It will 

 not be like the ripe 150 and 200 year old 

 growth which we are now cutting. Our chil • 

 dren will not have the percentage of clear 

 and upper grades of well-matured wood 

 which we now have. They will have to be 

 content with forty to fifty year growth of 

 sound lumber with sound knots, an^i their 

 finishing lumber may be what is even better 

 than ours is now — a fine, clear fiber board 

 that will be free from liabilitv to check or 

 shrink, and susceptible of a high polish. 



Then Mr. White emphasized a point 

 which he had already touched upon, the 

 growing importance of the small trees. 

 These, he declared, are to be the com- 

 mercial timber of the future. They are 

 already in demand for telegraph and 

 grape poles, mining props, railroad ties, 

 wagon hub and spoke, and handle tim- 

 ber, and for many other uses : 



A rapidly increasing population, wanting 

 bread as well as trees, cannot wait 200 years 

 for trees to grow, and I do not believe it will 

 be economy that they should. We should 

 sell from our forests whatever is most valu- 

 able regardless of mere size and we should 

 plant again, protect, and grow another croj) 

 governed by intelligent forestry methods. 

 The farmer finds that he often gets more 



for his young corn than it would bring him 

 if matured. He gets more very frequently 

 for a six-weeks'-old veal calf than he would 

 get for that same calf a year old. So it is 

 with lumber trees. Let us supply the market 

 demand and keep reforesting, conserving, 

 and growing trees for the market. Germany, 

 France, England, and other foreign countries 

 are coming to America for their lumber, be- 

 cause they buy here cheaper than they can 

 raise it at home. Some time the market 

 will advance so it will become necessary and 

 profitable for them to raise their own trees, 

 even as we will have to grow ours. Lumber 

 to-day is worth at the mills forty per cent 

 less than it was worth two years ago. The 

 farmer's wheat and corn are worth twenty- 

 five per cent more, and his cotton 100 per 

 cent more than it was a year ago, and it is 

 all due to the market conditions governed 

 by the law of demand and supply. 



This necessity of utilizing the smaller 

 trees and growing more rapid rotations 

 will be regretted by the lover of the 

 big forest, but we shall have to recog- 

 nize the compelling force of daily needs. 

 More and more we must consider this 

 subject of the prevention of waste. We 

 are glad to have this discussion of it by 

 a practical lumberman — not a last word, 

 but a good word. There was much of 

 the ethical spirit of the forestry and con- 

 servation movement in Mr. White's 

 closing sentences, and we commend 

 them for the breadth and enthusiasm 

 that animated them : 



Forestry and agriculture will work hand in 

 hand. Each needs the other in the work of 

 conservation and reclamation. In the reali- 

 ties of life we need both its poetry and its 

 prose. We need the trees and the flowers, 

 the golden grain and the ripening autumn 

 days; we need youth and spring and old 

 age, and we need most public patriotism, 

 moral courage and human love. 



^ «r' 5^' 



Who I» Able to Stand Before Envy? 



W 



RATH is cruel, and anger is out- 

 rageous ; but who is able to stand 

 before envy?" 



Thus spake the wise man thousands 

 of years ago, and his words are appro- 

 priate to-day. 



These reflections are called forth by 

 another Denver outbreak. The thing 

 which now chiefly disturbs the equa- 

 nimitv of the would-be land-grabber 



