1474 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



non-agricultural land for agriculture is a public crime. The con- 

 tention that any forest economist has ever ativocated the renewal 

 of all forests regardless of the character of the land is a mis- 

 chievous mis-statement. Opposition by private interests to the 

 pro|)er classification of worthless agricultural lands as forest 

 lands has been determined and far-reaching. 



i. The greatest prosperity is found in the multiplying of 

 industries and not in their elimination. To say that the elimi- 

 nation of forest industries is a public benefit because capital 

 may be profitably employed elsewhere is an argument which 

 could be applied to any other industry and is fundamentally 

 wrong. 



The statement that the less wood the nation consumes per 

 capita, the better off they are. would be along the same line as 

 the foregoing. We use less wood because we are unable to 

 afford more, just as we cut down on food and clothes for the 

 same reasons. The cheapness, serviceability and usefulness of 

 wood will continue to be desirable and its consumption in large 

 quantities would be a public benefit were it possible to produce 

 wood in adequate amounts. 



4. The virtual disappearance of the more valuable timber 

 trees is a public calamity which cannot be overcome by the sub- 

 stitution of inferior species or of metals and other materials. 

 The ability to choose from several substitutes tends to keep 

 down the prices and increase supplies. With wood eliminated, 

 prices must rise and conditions of life become harder. 



5. The amount of land which should be devoted to forestry 

 will be determined as inuch by the need for timber as by the 

 suitability of the land itself. At present land producing 97 per 

 cent of our annual timber cut is being managed so that this pro- 

 duction will largely cease in the near future. If it were true that in 

 the future there were any probability that such enormous areas 

 of land would be devoted to producing timber as to seriously 

 reduce returns froin agriculture or from any other form of the 

 use of the land, public policy and private interest would dictate 

 the reclassification of some of this land and its devotion to the 

 more needed public utility. Then what should be our policy 

 with regard to this timber land ? 



6. Where clearing paves the way for a more profitable use of 

 land, that land has been so used except where this development 

 has been prevented by speculation on the part of the original 

 land holders. Where clearing of non-agricultural land has paved 

 the way for forest fires and desolation instead of the continuance 

 of a productive enterprise, the question as to whether public 

 economy is best served is one which cannot be answered oflf- 

 hand by the statement that the capital required to protect 

 these lands and continue them as forests is better employed in 

 some other undertaking. 



7. It is conceded that the lumber business is jwl the business 

 of growing timber. Foresters and economists have realized this 

 from the start. The lumber business therefore treats the forest 

 as a mine, utterly ignoring the fact that it is a crop. Men who 

 buy timber and operate sawmills are not foresters. Yet, tlirough 

 the fact that they are owners of timber land, many of them 

 assume to know more about forestry and forest economics than 

 do the foresters themselves, and because the business of forest 

 production is little understood by them and would involve a 

 line of activity and investment outside of their own business of 

 lumbering, their attitude has been consistently one of pessimism 

 towards those who are attempting to establish the business of 

 forestry on an efficient basis. 



If it is true that timber production is distinctly a public enter- 

 ])rise, it must follow that it is a necessary undertaking and that 

 without it the public interests will be seriously injured. Why 

 then is there not a more intelligent advocacy of forestry by those 

 who come the nearest to it ; namely, the lumbermen whose busi- 

 ness will disappear on the disappearance of the forest resource? 

 The answer is that they have feared that the public will require 

 them to conduct this business and to conduct it at a loss. 



8. Local shrinkage of emi)loyment for labor, necessitating the 

 transfer of the laborer, his family and his investments, to other 

 fields may result in his securing higher wages, hut strikes at 

 the basis of economic stability and independence. IJo we prefer 

 hobo labor or laborers who own their own homes and are 

 members of a stable community? Is the increasing scarcity of 

 raw material a benefit because it forces laborers to move from 

 one locality to another or would the maintenance of a supply of 

 raw material be of greater benefit to these laborers? 



9 If lands cleared for timber are better suited for agri- 

 cultural, stock raising, or other i>urposes, they will eventually 

 be used for these purposes in the absence of the speculative 

 handicap of high prices often imposed upon such lands by private 

 owners who have stripped them of their timber. Since they are 

 unsuited to forestry or better suited to other purposes tne los'^ 

 does not consist in their lack of use for forest production, but in 

 their being withheld from the use to which they are best 

 adapted. 



10. The idleness of privately owned cut-over lands fit only for 

 forestry has long been held to be an economic necessity on the 



part of tlie lumber operator for the reason that he cannot per- 

 suade himself to risk the use oi these lands for the only purpose 

 from which he can ever olitain an adequate revenue : namely, the 

 production of more timber. Idle cut-over forest lands which 

 cannot be forced on the market for agriculture or grazing are a 

 dead load in the owners' hands. Foresight would have enabled 

 these owners to have created values in growing timber with small 

 cost to themselves and these values would carry the land. This 

 point of view these operators have stubbornly refused to admit 

 since they are not in the business of raising timber and since 

 the traditional policy of operators has been to regard the land. 

 after stripping it of timber, as a liability. The measures which 

 might have been taken to preserve small timber and secure repro- 

 duction have not been taken. For this reason alone these forest 

 lands are idle and waste and are an economic problem of stag- 

 gering immensity in most cut-over areas. 



ir. The average owner of private property in timber lands 

 has so far made but little conscientious effort to determine 

 whether or not it would pay him to try to maintain the forest 

 productivity of these lands. The fact cannot be successfully 

 disputed, that such owners are usually not interested in the 

 possibility of growth, regarding it as so impractical that they 

 could not even waste the tiine required to consider it. After 

 the cutting is completed, it is useless to take up the proposition 

 since the real opportunity lies in so handling the original cut 

 as to leave favorable conditions for the second cut. 



12. The principle that no damage should be done to another's 

 property, while admitted in the fourteenth point, has not been 

 recognized in practice. Forest lands of the United States have 

 been stripped of timber regardless of the effect of this clearing 

 upon erosion, stream flow and irrigation, nor have adequate 

 measures been adopted to prevent this misuse of private property. 

 The further extension of public control to prevent the unnecessary ; 

 devastation of a source of materials necessary for public welfare 

 will bear discussion. It is not sufficient to say that private 

 owners should be re(|uired to undertake no expense whatever 

 to preserve the productiveness of forest land. 



13. This point would be well taken if economists agreed that 

 self-interest is always enlightened. It has been the conviction of 

 forest economists for many years that the self-interest of the 

 average operator who is also an owner of forest land has been 

 anything but enlightened, and that the policies which he has 

 pursued, while apparently indicated by economic necessity, have 

 insured the destruction of his business in the least possible 

 time : and where he has been able to secure enough privately 

 owned timber to make his business last for fifty years or more 

 he has found hiinself staggering under a load and burden of 

 raw material far in excess of the carrying capacity of the busi- 

 ness. The lumber business is best conducted when free from 

 this load. The management of forest land should be a business 

 in itself. Enlightened self-interest of forest owners is most apt 

 to be displayed in those who have no connection with the manu- 

 facturing end of the business, for when an owner really intends 

 to keep his forest lands permanently, enlightened self-interest 

 will dictate the policy of preservation of the source of income 

 from that land. 



14. The author of the fourteen ixiints admits that there is a 

 limit to the policy of "the public be damned." Cut-over land 

 may reinain in idleness if private owners do not see fit to have 

 it otherwise, but these same private owners must be required to 

 protect that land from fire or to assist in doing so. The expense 

 thus incurred is not assumed to be for the purpose of benefiting 

 the owner since it has been conclusively shown that these benefits 

 are visionary. Yet fires must be kept out in order that the land 

 may naturally restock itself. Why? 



W'e agree that fire should be kept out in order to assi.st 

 at natural restocking and that this is the most obvious of 

 the measures which should be undertaken to prevent the 

 complete ruin of 80 per cent of the nation's forest re- 

 sources. Is this all that should be done? The mere pre- 

 vention of fire will, under some circumstances, secure 

 restocking of a satisfactory character, but this is not 

 assured unless favored by other factors, fainiliar to for- 

 esters and those who understand the business of forest 

 I)roduction, 



To acce])t such a platldrni wduld be to make us a 

 laughing stock for the civilized world. The use of lands 

 untit for other purposes, for the production of supplies of 

 raw materials is so fundamental a proposition and so uni- 

 versallv understood in Continetital Europe that it is no 

 longer even debated. 



