1902.] YALE FOREST SCHOOL AND ITS PURPOSES. 1 85 



about at once. We have ample proof of this in the frequent 

 articles in the magazines and newspapers and in the active 

 interest in forestry all over the country. It is highly signifi- 

 cant that the President in his first message to Congress dis- 

 cussed at some length the problem of forestry, which he 

 regards as one of the most important questions before the 

 public, emphatically declaring the preservation of our forests 

 to be an immediate business necessity. 



It is no longer necessary to discuss the value of preserv- 

 ing a forest cover at the headwaters of our streams. The in- 

 fluence of forests on stream flow is now generally recognized, 

 and, while we have not yet solved the practical problem of 

 the management of such forests, there is but little question 

 that our rivers can best be regulated by a forest cover at their 

 sources. 



Nor is it necessary to speak of the danger of a wasteful 

 use of our forest resources in view of a probable shortage of 

 timber in the future. Political economists and theorists are 

 not the only ones who see an exhaustion of certain kinds of 

 timber. Lumbermen now see that our virgin forests . will 

 soon be cut over, and that we shall have to use second growth 

 timber and kinds of trees which a short time ago were con- 

 sidered valueless. Original white pine has almost entirely 

 been cut from the forests of Maine, Pennsylvania, and Mich- 

 igan. Black walnut and cherry now exist only in remote 

 parts of the South. Prime white oak is becoming scarcer 

 every year, and yellow poplar is rapidly disappearing in the 

 South like the white pine of the North. Note the growing 

 popularity of such trees as red gum, which but a few years 

 ago was looked upon as a forest weed. Note the use in the 

 South of second growth old field pine, which has hitherto 

 been considered as brush, and absolutely worthless. Note 

 again the tremendous increase in the price of hardwood lum- 

 ber, such as yellow birch and maple, the use of balsam 

 fir for paper, the outlook for California red wood as a substi- 

 tute for cedar in the manufacture of pencils, and the general 

 tendency to find substitutes for kinds of timber formerly con- 

 sidered an absolute necessity, but now rapidly becoming ex- 

 hausted. Then again we are using smaller and coarser timber 

 than formerly. Compare, for instance, the white pine logs at 

 the mills with what were used fifteen years ago. The whole 



