268 Nebraska State Horticultural Society. 



sustained yield of timber, to make their holdings permanent, to make 

 large expenditures to operate their business, and they cannot, there- 

 fore afford to practice any other than forestry methods. 



The government seeks to co-operate with private owners, and 

 gives the aid of the Forestry Service in devising plans for managing 

 their timber holdings. To this end a circular was issued in 1898, 

 offering "practical assistance to farmers, lumbermen, and others in 

 handling forest lands." In response to this announcement applications 

 for such assistance have been received from nearly eveery state in the 

 Union. So fast as the resources of the Service will permit preliminary 

 examinations of these lands are made, and a plan of managing the 

 forest is devised which will insure its continuous productiveness with 

 satisfactory returns to the owner. The favor with which this offer 

 of assistance has been received evinces a growing tendency on the 

 part of corporations and large lumber companies to adopt forestry 

 principles in the management of their lands. 



Great advances have been made in the mechanism of lumbering. 

 Here, as in every other line where tools and machines are vised, 

 invention has followed invention till now with the aid of improved 

 machinery great trees are felled and converted into lumber with almost 

 incredible rapidity. The next step forward must be in the direction 

 of lumbei'ing according to forest principles, which would not only 

 conserve and improve the forests, but would in the end subserve the 

 highest interests of the lumber industry. 



I submit that this whole forest problem is not one of sentiment, 

 but a practical question of dollars and cents, and one that must be 

 worked out on economic lines. The widespread popular interest in 

 forestry at the present time is the result of an industrial demand for 

 the protection and conservation of our forests, growing out of the 

 decreasing supply of timber, close competition and appreciating 

 prices. 



