198 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



will not much serve us. We have got to work on a big scale. 

 The questions that hang about this subject — when can timber 

 be left to stand with confidence that it will not blow down, 

 and how shall we fix things to get out the blown timber we 

 are sure to have, are the most delicate problems the pioneers 

 of the new movement will have to settle. 



The common workmen themselves, too, must not be left out 

 of consideration . When a crew of tramps and criminals is taken 

 into the woods nothing can be expected but wasteful, irres- 

 ponsible labor. With poor men the best output from the 

 forest never can be obtained. On the other hand the intro- 

 duction of practical forestry means very much to labor. 



In Germany the workmen in the forests are trained, almost 

 skilled, laborers. They work all their lives at their business ; 

 they are well paid as labor goes in that country ; living with 

 their families in the forest, they are put in no such social 

 conditions as are the men in our woods. The German forest 

 laborer is a steady, well-conditioned, contented man, who 

 takes a pride in the forest in which he works. 



We can expect no revolution in our own arrangement of 

 things. Doubtless the same class of men will continue to do 

 the work of our woods. Neither does there seem to be from 

 the point of view of the new movement any necessity for 

 radical change. A large share of our present woodsmen are 

 capable of fitting into the new conditions if they are only 

 rightly handled. Steady employment, fair and certain pay, 

 instruction and supervision in whatever is new in the work 

 required will in a few years greatly change the habits of our 

 careless and wasteful (-hoppers, 

 foni^'n^' Now as throwing light on several of the questions 

 Reform, '^"'^that liave been dealt with, as containing besides 

 the views of a practical and experienced as well as a progres- 

 sive man, I will print some extracts from correspondence 

 with Mr. George T. Crawford. Mr. Crawford's estimates of 

 growth seem to l)e, conditions considered, in substantial har- 

 mony with the results of this work. What he says about 

 reform in lumbering methods should have much more weio;ht 



