330 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



without the pecuniary returns which in European forests largely offset the cost of 

 such work. It is asking a good deal of the American lumberman that, with dearer 

 labor and a cheaper market, with no sale for his tree tops and limbs, with no returns 

 from his improvement cuttings, he shall manage his forests in accordance with 

 German methods and at the same time show anything to his credit on the balance 

 sheet. 



It is very interesting to read about forests abroad that yield a perpetual income 

 over and above the cost of management — an income that returns a fair per cent, on 

 the investment. Our forest owners and operators are not ignorant of all this. Many 

 of them have gone abroad and studied this question on the ground where such opera- 

 tions are carried on. They are more anxious than anyone else to inaugurate some 

 better system, provided it can be undertaken and carried on without loss. But, 

 everywhere, here and abroad, the true test of successful forestry is the balance sheet. 

 The most advanced thinkers and experts admit that no system is worthy the name of 

 forestry unless it is conducted with profit; and the American system fulfills this 

 requirement, at least, even if it fails in others. 



The tlemand is made that the American forest managers shall abandon their 

 methods, which look only to immediate or temporary profits, and set aside their wood- 

 lands as a permanent investment, the revenue from which shall be a matter of future 

 rather than present income. But can they afford to do this ? Most of our forest 

 proprietors bought their woodlands when they were poor; some of them ran in debt 

 for their purchases. Like other business men in pursuit of fortune they want to 

 realize on their investment during their lifetime and enjoy it. Furthermore, they 

 doubt whether the}- can make money if they depart from their present methods of 

 harvesting the product of the woods. 



There are a few forest owners, whose wealth enables them to hold their woodlands 

 as an investment, who have undertaken in a limited way a better system so far as to 

 restrict the cutting of some species to certain diameters, and to minimize the injury 

 done to small trees by the careless felling of timber or cutting of roads. This 

 restriction applies mostly to spruce, in which the cutting is limited to trees of twelve 

 inches or more in diameter. But a twelve-inch spruce is far from being a matured 

 tree, and the continued cutting of undersized trees tends eventually to the extinction 

 of the species. Under a thorough and complete system only mature trees should 

 be selected, or those which have attained a size so near maturit}" that the future 

 increment would not offset the interest on the present \'alue. 



It would be a grand thing if all our forests could be preserved in undiminished 

 areas and productivity. But has the public a right to demand of our forest owners 

 that they shall wai\'e their present incomes antl fortunes for the benefit of posterity ? 



