60 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



plies, and paying taxes, requires, like 

 other business, perpetuation of the re- 

 source dealt with, economy in every 

 process, and just payment by the con- 

 sumer for service rendered. 



Here is where we, who should be the 

 teachers, are at fault. We talk too 

 much about forests, as though they 

 were an end in themselves. We might 

 just as well talk only of land when try- 

 ing to improve agricultural conditions, 

 or water when urging the protection 

 and propagation of food fishes. How 

 can the average citizen understand for- 

 ests? It is the business of producing 

 and making them useful to him that he 

 must understand — its place in the so- 

 ciety under which he exists, the eco- 

 nomic laws under which it exists. He 

 must be brought to consider all forest 

 production and all forest use as little 

 or no different from the production and 

 use of any other necessary crop, obvi- 

 ously to be encouraged and stabilized 

 on a permanent basis profitable to all 

 concerned. W'hether he is a private 

 citizen or a law maker serving private 

 citizens, he must be fairly familiar with 

 the factors which govern lumber prices, 

 logging and manufacturing methods, 

 the cost of growing and protecting the 

 raw material. As long as he thinks an 

 uncut forest is forestry, and that such 

 forestry is good and all lumbering bad, 

 there will be no real progress. Nor 

 \v\\\ he have lumber to use sometime 

 when he needs it. 



We are moving in the right direction 

 slowly. Once propagandists made for- 

 estry an abstract problem of public or 

 private conscience. They dwelt on the 

 needs of posterity and urged present 

 sacrifice as a duty. They practically 

 said, "You are partly responsible for 

 lack of forest protection. Forest de- 

 struction is bad for somebody's grand- 

 children. Badness is wicked. There- 

 fore you are wicked. You need a ser- 

 mon and we'll preach it." Nowadays 

 we realize that abstract ethics do not 

 influence human action as quickly as 

 does fear of immediate personal injurv. 

 It does not ofifend our reforming in- 

 stinct to add to our preachments of 

 dutv more vieorous and skilful appeals 

 to human selfishness. We say "Do you 



want to make more money? Then stop 

 the other fellow from destroying dol- 

 lars you would otherwise share. For- 

 est preservation is a bargain-price in- 

 surance policy you can't afford to be 

 without. It's cheap for a short time 

 only. Look over our prospectus and 

 invest." 



Now forest preservation is prosperity 

 insurance and insurance is good busi- 

 ness. But it is a commodity that must 

 be paid for in money and careful con- 

 duct. The new way is better than the 

 old, but our prospectus is still so gen- 

 eral it only gets a certain confiding 

 class of customers. It needs to give 

 more information about the business ; 

 information that will both convince the 

 critical and make every customer an- 

 other salesman. 



Seek local arguments. If for the 

 Atlantic coast, look up the pay-roll to- 

 tal for all lumbering and woodworking 

 industries in your State and the total 

 selling receipts from their manufac- 

 tured products. The size of the reve- 

 nue thus kept at home, but which will 

 leave you if these industries have to 

 move nearer some other sources of raw 

 material, will probably amaze you as 

 much as it will the public. Learn how 

 much your consumers pay annually for 

 all forest products and figure how much 

 they would save if there were no im- 

 port freight bills. Then learn the rate 

 of growth of your own species and re- 

 fute the popular belief that it is too slow 

 to enable saving these sums to those 

 now living. Do you know that Massa- 

 chusetts is todav manufacturing its 

 fourth crop of white pine? 



Learn your area of waste land, and. 

 with the same definite growth figures to 

 give your statements news value and 

 convincing business accuracy, show 

 what it mif^ht be earning the communitv 

 by producing forest commodities. Cal- 

 culate the tax revenues your existing 

 forests bring, and that which forests 

 on now waste land would pay, and show 

 the consequent reduction of taxation on 

 ther property. On definite premises 



() 



of area, growth rate, and conservative 

 crop values show the revenue obtaina- 

 ble by the State from forest reserves 

 of its own, balance this against the cosr 



