EDITORIAL 



549 



rigidly adhered-to policy of forest con- 

 servation — is good, sound business. The 

 reforestation of denuded slopes, moun- 

 tainsides and watersheds is the only 

 sure preventive of floods. Floods 

 wash away, destroy, and lay waste, an- 

 nually, property to the value of 

 millions upon millions of dollars. 

 If, therefore, even twenty-five per 

 cent, of this waste can be pre- 

 vented by reforestation, it would seem 

 as if the "sound business sense" of a 

 community would not hesitate a second 

 to adopt such a policy. But there are 

 other equally sound reasons for adopt- 

 ing such a policy— reasons sounder by 

 far than those upon which rest the 

 present industrial development of the 

 country. Railroads require ties ; mines 

 have to be timbered ; city building calls 

 for lumber ; farmers must have at least 

 measurably fertile soil ; and upon a 

 prosperous, permanent and contented 

 farming element rests the ultimate 

 prosperity of any community or state. 

 If the supply of railroad ties, let us 

 say, in Pennsylvania, is approaching 

 exhaustion, it becomes necessary for 

 the roads to seek their ties farther 

 away, and the same is true as regards 

 the mines. The farther away the tim- 

 ber supply is, the more it must neces- 

 sarily cost to secure it. Everybody who 

 has built, in the past few years, knows 

 how the price of lumber has increased. 

 And, as regards the farmer and his 

 "worn-out" farm, the reports of the im- 

 migration officers of the Canadian 

 northwest make interesting reading. 

 Hundreds and thousands of American 

 farmers have, well within the last de- 

 cade, moved across the border, leaving 

 their "worn-out" farms for the virgin 

 soils of Alberta, Manitoba, or British 

 Columbia. Railroads and factories can- 

 not easily follow the example of the 

 farmers ; but even factories may close 

 down permanently, and railroads are no 

 strangers to receiverships. With a per- 

 manently prosperous farming commun- 

 ity a state will have prosperous factor- 

 ies and industrial concerns — the two go 

 hand in hand ; and with these, the rail- 

 roads have plenty of business. Now, 

 for the words "worn out," as applied 



to farms, write "washed away," and you 

 have it. Farms, the top soil of which 

 has all been carried into the rivers and 

 down to the sea, cannot produce crops, 

 and so the farmers are compelled to go 

 elsewhere. And with the going of the 

 farmers — the extinguishment of a per- 

 manently prosperous agricultural popu- 

 lation—goes the basic principle of in- 

 dustrial or any other prosperity. Pro- 

 tect the forests and you protect the 

 farms ; protect the farms and you re- 

 tain the farmers ; retain the farmers 

 and you maintain the prosperity of the 

 community — it is as simple and as ob- 

 vious as that two and two make four. 



^ '^ )^ 

 A Permanent Timber Supply 



AND not alone from this side can it 

 be unanswerably argued that it is 

 sound business sense to preserve the 

 forests and to reforest the stripped 

 slopes and watersheds of the land. Take 

 the following illustration : A young 

 man starts in life with $10,000, invested 

 so as to bring him six per cent, a year. 

 Now, this young man cannot, or does 

 not want to get along on $600 annually, 

 so he uses his income and, yearly, 

 trenches upon his principal to the 

 amount of an additional $600. The 

 second year he must draw still more 

 heavily upon his capital ; he cannot do 

 with less than $1,200 per year. And 

 so, at a steadily increasing rate, his 

 capital is wiped out, until, in a few 

 years, he has neither income nor capi- 

 tal. Your "practical business man" 

 would call this young man a fool, and 

 he would be right. But this very thing 

 is what the sensible business men of 

 the country have been doing for a long 

 time. Let the $10,000 represent the orig- 

 inal timber supply of, say, Pennsyl- 

 vania ; let the six per cent, represent 

 the natural annual production, and let 

 the $1,200 stand for the annual con- 

 sumption of timber. Or apply the il- 

 lustration to the country at large. Now, 

 instead of making steady, year by year 

 inroads on the forests, it would have 

 been as easy to provide for a perma- 



