90 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



have been set aside in order to insure that their benefits shall be 

 permanent, their proper development necessarily involves the mak- 

 ing of plans which look far ahead, and such control over present use 

 as will prevent future loss of productive power. 



The object of forestry is to conserve through use. It includes 

 protection of the timber now standing, but it has for its main pur- 

 pose continued production along with constant use. Without the 

 application of forestry, use of the Forests is always accompanied by 

 deterioration. Forestry means simply intelligent control of the 

 processes of nature, in order to reap the largest advantage. It is 

 comparable with the work of scientific agriculture, of which indeed 

 it is a branch. Just as unintelligent farming brings about a decline 

 in the productive power of the farm, so use of forests which is not 

 guided by knowledge of the forces at work means impoverishment of 

 forest resources. Everywhere in this country the contact of civilized 

 man with the forests has brought abuse of the forests. This is as 

 true of the National Forests as it is in the East, though not to the 

 same degree. They declined progressively from the time of the 

 pioneers until intelligent regulation of their use began. Though 

 vastly the greater part of the National Forests are virgin, so far as 

 timber cutting is concerned, they have been so desolated by past fires 

 pnd injurious grazing that they are in far from the best condition. 

 One of the tasks involved in administering them is to build them up. 



Technical forestry is so new a thing in this country that the nature 

 of its work is even now not clearly understood by the public. The 

 long period required to bring a forest crop to maturity makes the 

 intelligent management of forests possible only if present operations 

 are shaped with a view to results which will follow many years sub- 

 sequently. The entire scheme of management generally looks to the 

 attaining of ends a century or more in the future. It is a question 

 of organizing all operations under a constructive plan which must 

 move forward a step at a time, each step coordinated with those 

 which precede and follow, to the final fulfillment of its purpose. The 

 forest must, through scientific knowledge of the laws which govern 

 it, be slowly shaped into conformity with the plan. The relative 

 amounts of growing timber of different ages, the kinds of trees, the 

 volume of timber which will be available at different times, the 

 development of transportation facilities, and the probable future 

 market demands, both as to quantity and kind, must be carefully cal- 

 culated. All of this means that the application of forestry requires 

 a policy of management which, for a long period of years, shall be 

 stable. The absolute necessity for a stable policy of management 

 constitutes the strongest reason why Government ownership of pro- 

 ductive forests is essential to the public welfare. To develop a 



