EDITORIAL 



111 



capitalization which have got to he met ? Can we afford 

 to let a large part of our potential forest production 

 lie idle? 



If the conditions set forth in the report of the Forest 

 Service may be taken as a safe guide, forest ownership is 

 at the bottom of the whole business. A different kind of 

 forest ownership is necessar\' to give the lumber business 

 stability and to meet the pennancnt needs of the United 

 States for wood. Other things, hke many fomis of indus- 

 trial cooperation, are necessary, but after all are largely pal- 

 liatives rather than real cures. Permanence in the owner- 

 ship and management of forest lands is the ultimate remedy. 

 The public forest policy should address itself to that ac- 

 complishment. The Government report points out possi- 

 bilities of a more stable kind of private own?i ship — and 

 they should receive every legitimate encouragement. But 

 the clear necessity remains for the wide extension of 

 public forest ownership, both state and federal. 



A large measure of public forest ownership has been 

 necessary to the development of forestry in most of the 

 countries of Europe and, if the findings of the Forest 

 Service are to be accepted, the United States will prove 

 no exception to the rule. Public agencies, state and 

 federal, now own or control about one-fifth of the forest 

 lands in the United States. A material increase in this 

 proi^ortion would inject more stability into the forest- 

 using industries and give the country better assurance of 



a future supply of wood adequate to its needs than any 

 other step which could possibly be taken. 



The final answer, of cour.se, must be the practice of 

 forestry on all lands suited to forest production, whether 

 made possible by economic conditions or brought about 

 through public regulation of the handling of private 

 forest lands. The general practice of forestry would not 

 only keep up production somewhere near, at least, the 

 wood-using requirements of the country, but would also 

 by its corresponding limitations upon the amount of 

 material cut from the forests stabilize the industries 

 u.sing them. But this happy solution, while the goal 

 which should never be lost sight of, can not come to pass 

 over night. The process must be one of adjustment, 

 in the investments represented by timberlands and 

 manufacturing plants, in legislation, in more intelligent 

 use of land, in the use of wood in relation to other mate- 

 rials. Definite and clear-cut leadership is needed to point 

 out the way. This must be fiu-nished by the state and 

 nation. Public forest holdings in one form or another 

 should be enlarged to the point which will bring about at 

 least some measure of regrowth in cut-out regions, which 

 will lay the basis for some degree of permanence in the 

 forest-using industries in all regions, and which will 

 give the consumers of the country a reasonable degree 

 of protection in the shifts and changes in the supply 

 of forest products. 



SHALL WE SUCCEED IN SAVING OUR WHITE PINE? 



THE fight against the imported white pine blister dis- 

 ease, starting as guerilla warfare in 1909, and sud- 

 denly developing into a general attack early in 1916, 

 has now reached a critical stage. The enemy, taking ad- 

 vantage of our lack of preparedness, has in this seven 

 year period gained an almost impregnable position in New 

 Englarid, and his advance forces of invasion penetrate to 

 Minnesota and unless quarantining proves efficient, may 

 appear with the coming season in the Rocky Mountains 

 and West Coast States. So insidious is this foe, spreading 

 silently and unobserved by the dissemination of millions 

 of minute spores bome on the wind, that the problem of 

 eradication — as we now realize — calls for the highest type 

 of intelligent leadership. Until this year, it was assumed 

 that the disease could be confined to the plantations made 

 from imported white pines, and no effort was made to 

 scout for its presence in the areas of native pine, until out- 

 breaks were reported of so serious a nature that the Massa- 

 chusetts Forestry Association became alarmed, and, aided 

 by the Bureau of Plant Industry in the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, the American Forestry Association, and 

 the cooperation of certain of the State Foresters, secured 

 funds from Congress and state Legislatures for a general 

 survey to discover its extent and prevalence. 



At the close of the season these facts must be accepted 

 as beyond dispute: first, that the disease has gained such 

 a foothold and spreads so rapidly on currants, that it can 

 be checked only by the extermination of either the pines 



or the currants bordering on infected areas. Second, 

 that the disease is fatal to all young or small white pines, 

 and is probablyequally fatal, though slower in itsoperation , 

 on mature trees. We quote the field agent of the Bureau 

 of Plant Industry, a man of thorough experience and train- 

 ing, whose judgment should be final. 



" In southern Maine, on 5 acres of native pine contain- 

 ing 1000 to 1500 trees per acre from 1 foot high up to 2 

 feet in diameter, we found nearly 90 per cent infected, 

 and over half the trees already killed or so seiiously in- 

 fected that death is certain. One tree, 15 inches in diam- 

 eter and 50 feet high, had the trunk girdled 20 feet from 

 the ground, and every main branch of the tree, about 100 

 in number, diseased. Somewhat similar conditions, on 

 a smaller scale, exist in southern New Hampshire." 



Girdling by this disease causes death within the same 

 season. Such facts are conclusive. Southern New Hamp- 

 shire is the region of most rapid and thrifty growth of 

 white pine, showing that the disease attacks all trees of 

 this species whether sickly or vigorous. 



We must either exterminate or quarantine the blis- 

 ter disease, or the white pine is doomed. 



To do this we demand united support and will no 

 longer tolerate evasion or misrepresentation on the part 

 of those who have either failed to inform themselves of 

 these facts or who for any other reason wish to keep the 

 public in ignorance of the truth. We quote from a public 

 address recently given by an eastern official : 



