REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 231 



the thought that the supply would last their time. Such an atti- 

 tude was the more readily justified by the fact that no matter what 

 convictions were held on the subject there appeared to be nothing in 

 particular that anybody could do about it. Economic conditions 

 were thought not ripe for a change. Wasteful exploitation must run 

 its course, it was argued, and a great national asset continue to 

 vanish in smoke until the price of protection became worth while and 

 until the market value of a tree made growing it good business. 



It may fairl}^ be said that half a generation ago the fear of a wood 

 famine was a matter that had not entered the field of vision of the 

 average man. Some sagacious ones, it is true, were giving practical 

 but unostentatious evidence of their capacity to see ahead by gather- 

 ing into their ownership all the cheap timberlands that they could 

 acquire. Thus were laid the foundations of great fortunes. Timber 

 reservations by no means began with the Government. The proceeds 

 of lumbering in the virgin forests of the Northeast and in the match- 

 less Lake State pineries, once Government owned, were often re- 

 invested in southern yellow-pine lands or in the cream of western 

 timber. This, however, was foresight exercised for private ends. 

 Those who put their money into such investments counted — and with 

 reason — on diminishing supplies to force up the value of their hold- 

 ings. But those who urged the necessity of public action to pro- 

 vide for future public needs were thought to be disturbing themselves 

 unduly in matters which were proper subjects for the attention of 

 Providence rather than of men. To concern oneself overmuch lest 

 wasteful use of the resources placed at human disposal might leave 

 posterit}^ with nothing to use argued a lack of confidence in the 

 Divine wisdom which had put us in a world designed for the satis- 

 faction of all essential needs. If the forests should ever fail, there 

 would be something better to take their place. 



This optimistic point of view was fostered by the very circum- 

 stances which in reality gave greatest cause for apprehension. Un- 

 expected and momentous changes had revolutionized the conditions 

 on which had been predicated the early forecasts of approaching 

 need. While by falsifying these forecasts they had operated to lull 

 the public mind into a feeling of unjustified security, they had 

 actually created a situation a hundredfold more serious than be- 

 fore. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the question 

 of forest supplies was purely local. Transportation except by water 

 for any great distance was out of the question for so bulky a com- 

 modity. 



AWAKENING TO THE PROBLEM. 



With the development of railroads affairs took on a wdiolly new 

 aspect. Continental supplies were substituted for local. In the 

 mid century the forests about the Great Lakes began to melt away, 



