PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE OF FOREST ECONOMICS 



61 



of such a project, and prove that you 

 could lower all taxation just as they do 

 in Europe. Study the etfect of de- 

 forestation on stream flow, use specific 

 familiar examples, and convert the in- 

 jurv into dollars and cents. When you 

 get figures in all these calculations, turn 

 them into popular comparisons that are 

 easily grasped. 



If you live on the Pacific Coast, for- 

 get that white pine grows rapidly in 

 Massachusetts and appeal to local pride 

 by saying that here, undoubtedly, is the 

 nation's woodHot, where climate and 

 rapid-growing species give an advan- 

 tage over the East which it is a business 

 crime to leave ungrasped. Show that 

 the area denuded by fire and use will 

 produce an equally valuable crop in. 

 say, sixty years, and that leaving thi'^ 

 land idle is costing our five coast for- 

 est States about thirty million dollars 

 a year. Add to this the loss by fire 

 and show many millions altogether are 

 being thrown away that might be dis- 

 tributed through every channel of in- 

 dustry. The lumber industry now 

 brings about $140,000,000 a 'year into 

 the four northwest Pacific States. 

 Show that this is more than they get 

 from wheat, wool, fruit, dairying and 

 fisheries combined. The Pacific Coast 

 had more than half the nation's timber. 

 Show how many billion dollars this will 

 bring in if saved for manufacture. 

 Show the wreck of industries that 

 would follow its sudden destruction and 

 point out that partial destruction means 

 the same thing in proportion. 



When a score of American citizens 

 are endangered by an uprising in China 

 or Mexico, no price is too great to pay 

 for their protection. \\'hen a few hun- 

 dred sailors went down in the Manne 

 we were aroused to the supremity of 

 national effort — war. Are the lives of 

 hundreds of men and women who meet 

 fearful death in forest fires through 

 American carelessness any less pre- 

 cious? Their sufferings any less cause 

 for national horror? The neglect of 

 our people to observe the same care 

 with fire in the woods that they exer- 

 cise at home, the refusal of Congress 

 and legislatures to appropriate ade- 

 quately for fire prevention, and the 



leniency of our courts with fire law 

 violators, all must be due to failure by 

 those of us who are responsible for 

 American education in these matters to 

 impress a true comparison of values 

 on the public mind. 



As a nation we are engaged in for- 

 estry. Our national forests comprise 

 nearly 200 million acres. Here is a 

 stupendous task, involving the protec- 

 tion of existing supply, reforesting de- 

 nuded areas, and disposing of the prod- 

 uct so as best to serve the people and 

 to influence conservative management 

 of private forests. To withhold funds 

 necessary to do the work is letting an 

 immensely profitable manufacturing 

 plant lie almost idle, as well as in 

 danger of destruction, to save the cost 

 of fuel and watchmen. To mismanage 

 it would be as bad or worse, for the 

 one-fifth of our timber supply thus 

 under public control cannot but influ- 

 ence profoundly the permanent wise 

 management of the four-fifths under 

 private control upon which we are still 

 more dependent. Clearly all of us — 

 lumberman and consumer alike — have 

 most to gain from stable conditions for 

 the fullest use and perpetuation of all 

 our forest resources, regardless of own- 

 ership ; from making all true forest land 

 capable of earning such an income from 

 forest production as, without being ex- 

 cessive, will insure its best management 

 and consequent fullest service to com- 

 munity and nation. 



And yet who can deny that we are 

 without any accepted clear-cut. depend- 

 able, national policy which supports 

 and finances this immense project with 

 competent consideration of both public 

 and private forests and their influence 

 on permanent industrial development ^ 

 Th-^ Forest Service can neither an- 

 nounce nor execute such a policy so 

 long as there is every extreme of vari- 

 ance in the views not only of the States, 

 whose attitude toward their own for- 

 ests and forest industries has a pro- 

 found influence, but also in Congress 

 where any executive policy, to be de- 

 pendable, nuist find sanction and sup- 

 port. Every Congressional session sees 

 the whole subject debated from a dozen 

 viewpoints, chiefly political, with a 



