362 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



care of themselves if that is well at- 

 tended to. This may be an extreme 

 attitude, but there is much reason in it, 

 and if the state can only handle prop- 

 erly one phase of the question, that is 

 the one that demands first considera- 

 tion. 



We cannot expect much private for- 

 estry until we make forest property as 

 reasonably secure as other property. 



«? )t' 5^' 



A Powerful Ally 



IF WE may judge from the reports 

 of and comments on the great meet- 

 ing of the National Lumber Manufac- 

 turers' Association at New Orleans in 

 April, that gathering was most signifi- 

 cant in its serious consideration of the 

 larger problems of lumbering and for- 

 estry. The purely commercial ques- 

 tions that have largely occupied our 

 business associations of this kind seem 

 to have been markedly subordinated. 

 The Southern Lninbenuen expresses 

 this at the beginning of its report of 

 the meeting when it says : 



The striking feature of the eighth annual 

 meeting of the National Lumber Manufac- 

 turers' Association held here at the Grune- 

 wald Hotel yesterday and to-day, was the 

 fact that the excellent papers which com- 

 posed the program and the general trend of 

 discussion were not directly along the lines 

 of a study of sales methods for the market- 

 ing of forest products, but rather for the 

 conservation of timber and a complete util- 

 ization of all forest products. It might well 

 have been mistaken for a conservation meet- 

 ing, as that was the subject that was most 

 discussed, and with it the discussion of tim- 

 ber land taxation, which is so closely allied 

 to the subject of conservation. It was the 

 sense of the body that the present system of 

 taxation is in many respects deficient and 

 unjust, and that some action should be taken 

 leading toward a more equitable system of 

 taxation. 



The two addresses which seem to 

 have aroused the most active interest 

 were those by Forester Graves on pri- 

 vate forestry, on which we commented 

 last month, and by Professor Fairchild 

 on the taxation of forest lands. 



President Hines. in his annual ad- 

 dress, emphasized the importance of 

 forest conservation to the lumberman 



and its national bearings, which make 

 it primarily a matter for a national as- 

 sociation to deal with rather than the 

 local affiliated bodies. "One reason for 

 this," he said, "is that under the pres- 

 ent protective system practically every 

 timber section is in more or less direct 

 competition with every other section, 

 and if costly restrictions and duties are 

 placed upon the lumber manufacturers 

 of one state, they are placed at an arti- 

 ficial disadvantage with their compet- 

 itors in another state." In view of this 

 fact, he announced the establishment by 

 the board of governors of a conserva- 

 tion committee of the association, 

 headed by Capt. J. B. White. "Under 

 the guidance of the able chairman of 

 this committee," President Hines prom- 

 ised, "the lumbermen of the country 

 will be placed in their proper light in 

 the front ranks with this new handling 

 of conservation on enlightened and 

 practical lines, and must be recognized 

 by those theorists who profess to be the 

 only conservationists." This declara- 

 tion from such a source is assurance 

 that the cause of forestry is at last 

 coming to its own and perhaps the 

 theorists have had something to do with 

 bringing this about. 



President Hines mentioned among 

 the subjects for this committee the 

 treatment of cut-over lands, require- 

 ments as to cutting, diameter limits of 

 cutting, and replanting, remarking that 

 in some states propositions have been 

 seriously considered which are abso- 

 lutely impractical. The following state- 

 ment made by him is significant and 

 shows a wise grasp of the situation : 



Many lumbermen might like to have all 

 these subjects dismissed, but it is my con- 

 viction that the conservation movement has 

 gone so far that it cannot be stopped, but 

 its direction can be controlled somewhat 

 and practical ideas and methods can be in- 

 sisted upon by us. 



He also spoke briefly an-d forcibly of 

 the tax question as one of the utmost 

 importance. In this sentence he de- 

 scribes a fundamental difficulty in the 

 tax situation, especially in some of our 

 more conservative states : "One great 

 trouble with the present method of tim- 



