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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



government, that debatable subject must 

 be ignored here for the reason that 

 .conditions and not theory will deter- 

 mine in the matter of the forests. But 

 this much can and should be said : If 

 conditions were alike, there is no more 

 reason why either national or state gov- 

 ernments should grow, maintain, and 

 dispose of forests and forest products 

 than there is that they should grow, 

 harvest, and sell wheat or other prod- 

 ucts of the soil known as farm crops, 

 a work not recognized as a govern- 

 mental function. But conditions are 

 unlike; the element of time of ma- 

 turity enters largely into the case. 

 Farm crops, in the main, mature in one 

 year, while it takes well on toward a 

 century for forests to grow fit to har- 

 vest. In one case, the time is well 

 within the limits of the average indi- 

 vidual's lifetime ; yet that feature does 

 not prevail when he grows trees, but 

 it does when the government engages 

 in it. We do not contemplate the gov- 

 ernment's death ; we assume that it will 

 live for all time, and that it is as much 

 its duty to provide for the future as 

 for the present. For that reason, grow- 

 ing and disposing of the forests of the 

 country should not be classed with the 

 control of other natural resources. Nor 

 is this the only difference. It is no 

 wild shriek when we declare that the 

 forest is the only one of our natural 

 resources that can be perpetuated. It 

 is a living, burning fact, the existence 

 of which all must admit ; and it car- 

 ries with it the obviously greater need 

 to put forth efforts to maintain in per- 

 petuity the only one possible, for in 

 our frantic efforts to exploit our nat- 

 ural resources we are hastening the pe- 

 riod of their exhaustion, and when 

 that time is reached development and 

 destruction will have become prac- 

 tically synonymous terms. 



In a recent speech at Spokane, Presi- 

 dent Taft stated that: "The United 

 States government timber land is only 

 about one-fourth the timber land owned 

 by private individuals." He referred 

 to the productive forests and did not 

 include cut-over lands, of which the 

 United States government owns but 



little. This gives us a basis upon which 

 to approximately determine what our 

 national government can now do toward 

 furnishing a supply of forest products. 

 If the forests of the country are ample 

 in extent, then the government's sup- 

 ply of one-fifth will suffice; if not 

 ample, then that supply may fall far 

 short of the needed amount, a supply 

 which will continue to grow less 

 through exhaustion until new forests 

 can be grown. The question then 

 arises, are they ample? Recent sta- 

 tistics show that we are consuming our 

 forest products more than three times 

 faster than they grow. If this be so, 

 and it undoubtedly is, the forests owned 

 by the United States government will 

 utterly fail in supplying the demands 

 of the country, and that, too, without 

 considering any increase of population 

 or new uses for wood, both of which 

 will inevitably occur ; and, furthermore, 

 it must be remembered that some of the 

 timber lands now belonging to the gov- 

 ernment must be given up for settle- 

 ment, for forestry must not claim land 

 suitable for agriculture. Thus, the 

 restoration and conservation of our pro- 

 ductive forests by the United States 

 government will be greatly restricted 

 unless it shall plant additional ones or 

 purchase them, as advocated in the case 

 of the Southern Appalachian and the 

 White Mountain reservations — a prop- 

 osition which the judiciary committee 

 of the House of Representatives in 

 Congress has decided would be uncon- 

 stitutional, unless for the sole and de- 

 clared purpose of providing for the 

 protection and preservation of the navi- 

 gable rivers receiving their waters from 

 such areas ; and this would probably 

 give no power to harvest the timber ; 

 and without that power such areas 

 would be of little value in supplying 

 forest products. It will appear from 

 this that a constitutional amendment 

 will be necessary to enable the govern- 

 ment to increase its timber producing 

 forests, unless by planting. That such 

 power should be given, there is no 

 question : but whether it will be, is a 

 matter of uncertainty. 



