REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 283 



Solely to that work is due the fact not only that the great bulk 

 of the national forests were ever set aside, but also that the justifiable 

 demand for the supply of immediate needs has not been confronted 

 by a flat taboo upon use which would liave meant the abandonment 

 of reservations already made. Solely to that work, again, is due the 

 fact that the practice of technical forestry in the United States has 

 been made possible by the gathering through the years of the basic 

 scientific knowledge on which alone good practice can be founded. 

 Had this great work not come when it did, most of our remaining 

 publicly owned forests would have passed forever from public pos- 

 session and private monopoly would now be forging its fetters with 

 no prospect of relief save by the slow and difficult procedure of 

 legislation in the face of vested rights. In 1905 I wrote: 



Seven years ago there were in the whole United States less than 10 profes- 

 sional foresters. Neither a science nor a literature of American forestry was 

 in existence, nor could an education in the subject be obtained in this country. 

 Systematic forestry was in operation on the estate of a single owner, honorably 

 desirous of furnishing an object lesson in an unknown field. Lumbermen and 

 forest owners were skeptical of the success of forest management, and largely 

 hostile to its introduction. Among the public at large a feeling in favor of 

 forest preservation, largely on sentimental grounds, was fairly widespread, 

 but almost wholly misinformed. It confounded use with destruction, shade- 

 tree planting with forestry. 



The real need of forestry was urgent. A time had come which presented 

 at once a great opportunity and a dangerous crisis. Forest destruction had 

 reache^l a point where sagacious men — most of all, sagacious lumbermen — 

 could plainly discern the not distant end. The lumber industry, vital to the 

 Nation at large, was rushing to its own extinction, jet with no avenue of escape 

 apparent until forest management for future crops should be forced by famine 

 price.s. Meanwhile, however, the ruin would have been wrought already. 



Timborland owners were selling their holdings or their stumpage with little 

 evidence of an understanding of their future values, and lumbermen were com- 

 pelled by business competition to keep down the cost of operation to the lowest 

 terms or market their product at a loss. Forestry was both an evident eco- 

 nomic need and an apparent economic impossibility. Few well-informed i>ersons 

 believed that the obstacles to its introduction could be overcome sufficiently to 

 bring it into common practice among private owners during the lives of the 

 pre.sent generation. That the whole situation is profoundly altered is directly 

 and chielly due to the work of the Forest Service. 



Forestry is a matter of immediate interest to every household in the land. 

 Forest destruction is no imaginary danger of a distant future. If it is not 

 speetlily checked, its effect will sooner or later be felt in every industry and 

 every home. To make these facts known is a national duty. The work of edu- 

 cation must continue until public opinion will not tolerate heedless waste or 

 injudicious laws. 



These words are no less true now tlian when they were written, 

 except for the fact that the record of progress has been materially 

 enlarged. In retrospect one central fact stands out — that the key 

 to the whole situation was seized when the practice of forest con- 

 servation was shown to involve not the rearing of blind barriers 



