State and National Governmentfi and Forestry. 165 



WHAT SHOULD THE STATE AND NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS 



DO FOR FORESTRY? 



BY B. E. FERNOW, CHIEF OF FORESTRY DIVISION, WASHIXGTON, D. C, 



Your Secretary has called for short papers, but your worthy President 

 has proposed such a long title and so broad a subject for me that I have 

 found it diflBcult to be brief and yet tolerably exhaustive. To attempt to 

 compress the subject into small space has necessitated that I should forego 

 many valuable arguments, and has obliged me to state simply in terse sen- 

 tences and in dogmatic form the basis of forest legislation. 



Before we discuss particular legislation we must agree, Firat, that legis- 

 lation, national or state, is not designed to adjust merely matters of to day, 

 but must often work with an eye to the future. Secondly, that legislation is 

 necessary whenever opposing private interests are not strong enough to so 

 mutually balance each other as to produce a natural adjustment; that is to 

 say, whenever the interests of the few lead to detriment, material or other- 

 wise, for the many, for the community at large in the present or the future. 

 And we must also ascertain whether the time for state interference in any 

 particular case has arrived, i. e., whether the selfish greediness which char- 

 acterizes the majority of single individuals in their economic relations has 

 gone so far as to make defense of the communal interests a necessity. 



Foresi legislation naturally has reference either to the forest areas which 

 we find ready for use, a product of nature like mines and agricultural fer- 

 tility, or to such forest areas as we may artificially produce. 



As simple sources of national wealth, the forests, it is asserted, can claim 

 no more, although certainly as much, recognition by legislature than mines, 

 for instance. Indeed, forests might well be compared to the latter were it 

 not that the forest resources are more limited, and, therefore, must become 

 exhausted within a comparatively short period in the existence of the nation, 

 and that they are capable of reproduction by human effort. The forestry 

 interests may, perhaps, be best compared with the fishery interests of a 

 country, both being gifts of nature liable to be exhaused by the wasteful use 

 of man. 



Considering the material aspect of this source of wealth, at a rough esti- 

 mate, the position of the forest resources of this country at present is about 

 as follows : The annual consumption of wood products must be considerably 

 above 20,000,000,000 cubic feet, while the area from which this is drawn is 

 considerably less than 500,000,000 acres, and owing to the lack of attention to 

 the matter of reproduction, and the ravages of fire and cattle everywhere 

 prevailing, the annual growth can hardly be half our annual production. 

 This last conclusion we reach by comparing our forest conditions with those 

 of a country like Germany, which, with careful management and favorable 

 conditions for wood growth in all parts, produces on an average not more 

 than fifty cubic feet per acre per year. 



