EDITORIAL 



495 



possible for the eminent statesmen from 

 Ohio and Nevada to attach amendments 

 to the bill that will throw it into con- 

 ference if they are accepted by the Sen- 

 ate, and then, with only two weeks re- 

 maining of the session, the conference 

 and the succeeding discussion could be 

 prolonged until it would once again be 

 too late to enact the bill. 



We ask the senators who support this 

 bill to guard against such a disaster, 

 for it would be nothing less. We ask 

 President Taft to throw the weight of 

 his influence to secure the prompt 

 passage of this bill, most vital, most 

 immediately necessary of all conserva- 

 tion measures, and the only one for 

 which the east has asked. 



The delay this year means a heavy 

 loss, especially in the White Mountains. 

 Any further delay, in view of the well- 

 known facts, would be a crime. 



There is a strong feeling among many 

 people who know the legislative ways 

 of Washington that there is no inten- 

 tion of passing this bill ; that enough is 

 to be done at each session to pacify 

 troublesome constituencies, and that the 

 measure, having been used as a football 

 between the houses, will be allowed to 

 quietly "fall through the slats" at each 

 session. Expressions of this opinion 

 have come to us from so many sources 

 that we believe it may be well for sena- 

 tors and representatives to know that it 

 exists. The country is impatient of 

 anything that looks like unfair play, 

 and the football game has been played, 

 with this bill for the leather, as often 

 as it is safe to play it. The next game 

 must be a fair one in which votes count. 



)^ «? >^ 



Prize Essays in Forestry 



FOUR pupils in the high schools and 

 township schools of Indiana recently 

 carried ofif as many prizes for essays 

 on the subject of "Forestry in Indiana." 

 The winners were Myrl Ellen Simmons, 

 of Union City; Olive O. Shideler, of 

 Attica ; Garfield V. Cox, of Fairmount, 

 and David Erwin, of Fort Wayne. Col- 

 lectively, the essays give a fairly ade- 

 5 



quate acount of the present situation 

 in the state, while individually they do 

 credit to the writers and their instruc- 

 tors as well written and thoughtful bits 

 of exposition and argument. Most of 

 the salient points are well brought out, 

 and enforced with good sense and in 

 good English. The extent to which the 

 Indiana forests have been exploited in 

 ,the past, • the chief present problem — 

 that of planting, and the value of the 

 farm woodlot as part of the well- 

 balanced use of agricultural land are 

 accurately and convincingly indicated. 



There is no more productive soil in 

 which to sow the seed of sound think- 

 ing upon forest economics than that of- 

 fered in the public schools of the coun- 

 try. For a lifetime the pioneers of for- 

 estry have been expending immense 

 stores of energy in converting adult 

 minds, educated in days when indiffer- 

 ence to the forest, an over-sensitive 

 sense of private rights, and the tradi- 

 tions of half a dozen generations were 

 stubborn counter-tendencies. In over- 

 coming these tendencies there has been 

 great waste of effort ; the minds of 

 grown men and women responded but 

 slowly and incompletely. Meantime, 

 the forces that make for forest waste 

 remained in full swing; the speculative 

 view of forest investments, encouraged 

 by experience of quick and rewarding 

 profits, even augmented the speed and 

 magnified the scale of the exploiting 

 process. It became more and more evi- 

 dent that a change for the better could 

 be brought about only by showing the 

 financial advantages of permanent for- 

 est management, on the one hand, and 

 by rousing and guiding civic responsi- 

 bility, on the other. The required means 

 were a sound education in the principles 

 of forestry and a moral enlightenment 

 as to the responsibility of the state for 

 the general welfare ; in other words, 

 the development of well considered 

 forest policies, private and public. The 

 foundations for these policies are to be 

 laid most effectively in the schools, 

 where forestry has become at once a 

 cultural study and a department of 

 civics. The Indiana school essays are, 

 therefore, not only thoroughly worth 



