746 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



taut part of the taxes. Let us say it 

 is dairying, or fruit growing, or furni- 

 ture making. He concedes its necessity 

 without argument. Citizens and offi- 

 cials aHke work for its continuance and 

 development. None would dare do 

 otherwise. If it needs regulation for 

 public good, they do this also. But 

 they know how. If it is a dairy com- 

 munity, its average citizen knows pretty 

 well what production costs, what prices 

 are fair, what improvements are feasi- 

 ble, what the State can and should do 

 to aid or regulate, what public demands 

 are reasonable. 



The relation of forests and their 

 management to State and Nation is ex- 

 actly that of our illustrative industry 

 to our suppositious vicinity, and so is 

 their relation to every citizen. The 

 trouble is that we cannot see it so 

 clearly. The very immensity of the in- 

 dustry causes its several processes of 

 growing, manufacturing and distribut- 

 ing to be conducted separately and thus 

 confuse the public mind. How can we 

 expect our average citizen to see all 

 this when we talk only about forests ? 

 We might as well talk only of land 

 when trying to improve agricultural 

 conditions, or water when urging the 

 protection and propagation of food 

 fishes. It is the entire business of their 

 production and use that he must under- 

 stand : its place in the society under 

 which he exists, the economic laws 

 under which it exists. He must regard 

 it just as he does the i)roduction and 

 use of any other necessary crop, ob- 

 •iously to be stabilized on a permanent 

 basis profitable to all concerned. He 

 must realize that its performances and 

 service to the community — supplying 

 the consumer, employing labor, using 

 stipplies, and paying taxes — require, 

 like any other industry, three essential 

 conditions : j)er])etuation of the re- 

 source dealt with, economy in every 

 process, and just return for the service 

 rendered. And, whether he is a i)rivate 

 citizen or a law maker, to do intelli- 

 gently his part in formulating an Amer- 

 ican policy under which such conditions 

 are assured, he must l)e fairly familiar 

 widi the factors which govern lumber 

 prices, logging and manufacturing 



methods, and the cost of growing and 

 protecting the raw material. 



Why is there little trouble in getting 

 laws or appropriations for the advance- 

 ment of agriculture or horticulture? 

 Not because these industries or their 

 participants are more useful and de- 

 serving, btit because people understand 

 their governing factors and see the 

 point of such laws. Were forest eco- 

 lomics ecjually understood, a State with 

 a hundred times more revenue to be 

 expected from lumber than from wool 

 would not appropriate $20,000 for 

 coyote scalps and only $500 for forest 

 protection. A community that applauds 

 its chamber of commerce for getting a 

 shoe factory and gives it a free build- 

 ing site would not carelessly burn up a 

 forest capable of employing a thousand 

 times as many men and then tax the 

 owner so he cannot hold and protect 

 the land for a new crop. A State glad 

 to see its farmers get a good price for 

 wheat, even if it does use flour, would 

 not rejoice because its sawmills are 

 forced to sell lumber below cost. A 

 lumberman who prefers to let his trees 

 stand until Americans need them, 

 rather than cut at a loss for foreign 

 export, would not be accused of con- 

 spiracy to bleed the consumer any more 

 than is a farmer who does not raise 

 potatoes when they don't pay for rais- 

 ing. 



Now a word as to the lumberman 

 himself. The private owner controls 

 most of our forest area. His use of it 

 our use of it, and the effect of our re- 

 lations upon our joint use of it, largely 

 determine our forest destinies. Why, 

 if his interest and ours is in the main 

 identical as I have said, does he ever 

 regard forestry as antagonistic or do 

 we incline to regard him as its object 

 of attack rather than as part of it? Is 

 it not just because forestry is too gen- 

 erally made a creed, not a business, and 

 because we have not shown ourselves 

 competent to deal with its business_ as- 

 pects? However gladly we might 

 welcome the improvement of our own 

 various industries and professions, 

 would we be likely to seek it through 

 regulation by lumbermen knowing as 

 little of our 'trade as we do of theirs? 



