TIMBERLAND OWNERS AND FORESTRY 



By W. K. BROWN 



^^r^'HERE has been widespread and general co-operation in New Hampshire 

 V ^J between the Federal, State, Association and Industrial interests, and a 

 mutual attempt to find the proper method of forest protection, operation 

 and renewal which would work out for all interests the widest practical and 

 lasting benefit. In this work the timberland owners have done their fair share, 

 and I will explain such methods as are meeting with their hearty support at 

 the present time, and the degree of cooperation in others which I think ap- 

 pears practical to them. As the many associations of timberland owners 

 which have sprung up the past three years, control a considerable share of 

 all the timber, their cooperation should be most urgently desired to obtain 

 immediate results. 



Now it is necessarily a practical problem with them, and their first ques- 

 tion is inevitably "does it pay"? In other words, while equally interested with 

 all good citizens in the future of the country and subscribing thereto liberally 

 out of taxes, they are chiefly concerned in assisting prosperity by bending their 

 energies to the advance of their particular business, and in securing the 

 proper base for a successful future by seeing that there is no present loss or 

 disaster. The whole problem is, I think, to persuade them, when we have 

 done this honestly for ourselves, of what is best for them in the long run, 

 helping them to maintain and build up their business meanwhile. This is 

 particularly so when we consider the advantage of maintaining a strong inter- 

 national position among other nations, which is largely dependent on the 

 position we take among one another at home. 



WHAT TIMBERLAND OWNERS WANT 



The following are some of the practical points which appeal to the timber- 

 land owner in forestry: 



First of all, fire protection, of which they have been woefully lacking in 

 return for taxes paid in the past, and where they can see clearly the benefits 

 of cooperation both among themselves and with the State and Government, 

 and it is along these lines that the first timberland owners' associations have 

 been formed, and the greatest energy is being put forth. 



Following this come study of the prevention of waste in the cutting and 

 marketing of timber, the practice of giving closer inspection to logging opera- 

 tion; study of scientific management in the handling of logs; and the en- 

 couragement of new wood-working industries for using up more closely the 

 products of their lands. Such work as is being done by the Forest Products 

 Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, is of the greatest value. 



Another point is the question of taxation, which although not now gen- 

 erally acute, might become so, as the present laws are theoretically unjust, 

 but, due to the good sense and inherent justice of the average tax assessor, 



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