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EVOLUTION OF FORESTRY. 



"The history of the forest in all forest countries shows the 

 same periods of development. 



"First, hardly recognized as of value or even as personal prop- 

 erty, the forest appears as an undesirable encumbrance of the 

 soil and the attitude of the settler is of necessity inimical to the 

 forest ; the need for farm and pasture leads to forest destruction. 



"The next stage is that of restriction in forest use and protec- 

 tion against cattle and fire, the stage of conservative lumbering. 

 Then some positive efforts to secure regrowth by fostering natu- 

 ral regeneration or by artificial planting: the practice of silvicul- 

 ture begins. 



"Finally, a management for continuity — organizing existing 

 forest areas for sustained yield — forest economy is introduced." 



NEED OF FORESTRY. 



It has been said that the longer a country is inhabited, the 

 poorer it becomes in forest growth and water. Private interest, 

 private enterprise, as a rule knows only the immediate future, 

 has only one aim in the use of the forest, viz : to obtain from it 

 the greatest possible personal and present gain. A lumberman 

 is a dealer in trees, with an eye to present profit and compara- 

 tively small regard for future conditions. A forester, on the 

 other hand, aims to keep the land productive, to treat timber 

 lands so that they will produce continuous crops of wood. This 

 policy necessitates some present money loss and calls for the 

 avowed intention of holding land as an investment. 



The protection of the interests of the aggregate against those 

 of the individual necessitates government control whenever a 

 communal interest would suffer by the unrestricted exercise of 

 individual rights. 



This necessity was felt early in the world's history but it was 

 not until about 1359 that forestry really began to be practiced in 

 continental Europe. Forest protection and methods of silvicul- 

 ture were put into effect which involved the proper age at which 

 timber should be cut, methods of thinning and of securing repro- 

 duction both naturally and by replanting. The science of deter- 

 mining the rotation for the production of wood has now been 

 so far advanced that for the past 150 years timber has been 

 raised in the same manner as any agricultural crop and it has 

 been possible by growth and yield studies to predict centuries in 

 advance just what the future wood crops will be. 



HISTORY OF FORESTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 



The United States was slow to take up forestry because it was 

 confidently believed that the forest resources in the vast stretches 

 of country in the middle west, south, and far west were inex- 

 haustible. 



