269 



men — most of all, sagacious lumbermen — could plainly, discern 

 the not distant end. The lumber industry, vital to the Nation 

 at laro:c, v/as rushing- to its own extinction, yet with no avenue 

 of escape apparent until forest management for future crops 

 should be forced by famine prices. Meanwhile, however, the 

 ruin would have been wrought already. 



I'imber-land owners were selling* their holdings or their 

 stumpage with little evidence of an understanding of their 

 future value, and lumbermen were compelled by business com- 

 petition to keep down the cost of operation to the lowest terms 

 or market their product at a loss. 



Forestry was both an evident economic need and an apparent 

 economic impossibility. Few well-informed persons believed 

 that the obstacles to its introduction could be overcome suf- 

 ficiently to bring it into com,mon practice among private own- 

 ers during the lives of the present generation. 



That the whole situation is profoundly altered is directly 

 and chiefly due to the work of the Forest Service. With its 

 offer of practical assistance to forest owners made in the fall 

 of i8q8, its field of action shifted from the desk to the woods. 

 The lumberman was met on his own ground. Uncertain specu- 

 lations were converted into business propositions and untried 

 theories into practical rules. Actual management for purely 

 commercial ends has been taken up and applied on their own 

 holdings bv some of the best known lumbermen in the country. 

 What lumbermen as a body now think of forestry is illustrated 

 by the recent effective movement in their National association 

 to endow a chair of lumbering at one of the forest schools. 



Forestry is a matter of immediate interest to every house- 

 hold in the land. Forest destruction is no imaginary danger of 

 a distant future. If it is not speedily checked its effects will 

 sooner or later be felt in every industry and every home. To 

 make these facts knovvm is a National duty. The work of edu- 

 cation must continue until public opinion will not tolerate 

 heedless waste or injudicious laws. 



PRESENT STANDING OF FORESTRY. 



The period which has passed since 1898 has been, in forest 

 work, a period of large definite accomplishments and of effec- 

 tive preparation for the future. Of the exact knowledge con- 



