24 



HARDWOOD RitCORD 



December 25, 1920 



Proposed National Timberland Policies 



(Continued fiom page 17) 

 011(1, that it tightens up the paper and pulp program by making 

 the permissive paragraph of that program at least to a measure 

 mandatory. Allen's idea is that regulatory legislation should 

 originate and be contined to the states, but he would have it so 

 arranged that the backward forest land owners can be forced, if 

 they refuse to acquiesce voluntarily, to carry out the regulations 

 that have been agreed to and put into operation by a majority of 

 the other timberland owners of any particular state. In other 

 words, Allen is ready to use the big stick, but he wants it wielded 

 by the progressive forest land owners themselves, acting through 

 properly trained, non-political state officials, rather than by ofiiccrs 

 of the federal government. In the paper and pulp plan all coopera- 

 tion is voluntary, and it would aiijiear, if a timber owner does not 

 care to cooperate, that under that program the state may be 

 expected to buj' him out. There are other features in the National 

 Lumber Manufacturers' program, but they are similar to those 

 already indicated as common to all the proposals made. 



The Forest Service Policy 



Chronologically tlie latest program to be promulgated is that of 

 the Forest Service, although so many modifications of plans have 

 occurred in the past year that it is hard to hold the fixed dates. 

 Col. W. B. Greeley succeeded Col. Graves as Chief Forester of 

 the U. S. Forest Service last May. On June 1 the so-called Capper 

 report (Senate resolution 311) was submitted to the Senate. In 

 this elaborate, although hastily prepared, document on the timber 

 and lumber resources of the nation, there appears, as the appendix, 

 a statement that may be taken as constituting the Forest Service 

 program on a national timberland policy. This statement was 

 further emphasized by addresses made by Col. Greeley at a meeting 

 held at Madisoii, Wis., in July last. In general it is not materially 

 at variance with the American Paper and Pulp Association pro- 

 gram, but it is stricter in two important particulars; fir.st, that it 

 provides that the Secretary of Agriculture shall set the standards 

 under which the federal government shall cooperate with the states 

 • in making 50-.50 allotments of appropriations for fire protection and 

 other work, and second that it emphasizes the point that adequate 

 protection from forest fire includes cutover lands quite as much 

 as those now bearing stands of mature timber. Our future timber 

 supplies can only come from what is now second growth. If the 

 natural reproduction is not protected, in all stages down to and 

 including seedlings, the stands of the future will be woodland 

 rather than forests of commercial importance. The Forest Service 

 plan further provides that forest land owners, large and small, shall 

 bear their share of the cost of fire protection. The basis recom- 

 mended is about one-half the expense. 



The Forest Service plan further recommends liberal appropria- 

 tions for continued acquisition of forest land under the Weeks' 

 law, — which it would make applicable to all parts of the country, — 

 for reforestation of denuded lands on national forests, and for a 

 survey of the forest resources of the United States. It incorporates 

 the essential provisions of the Sinnott forest land exchange bill of 

 the last session of Congress, and recommends the extension of forest 

 research and a study of forest insurance and forest taxation. 



Contrasting the Programs 



The only public attempts, so far as the writer knows, to contrast 

 these several programs are those made respectively by E. T. 

 Allen, at the meeting of the National Lumber Manufacturers' Asso- 

 ciation at Chicago in April, 1920, and by F. E. Olmsted in an 

 article in the October, 1920, issue of the Journal of Forestry (Vol. 

 XVIII, No. 6), the official organ of the Society of American For- 

 esters, published at Washington, D. C. Both these summaries were, 

 however, made with the idea of favoring certain programs, rather 

 than from the impartial attitude which the writer has endeavored 

 to maintain in the present paper. 



There have been numerous meetings held primarily to consider 

 one or more of the programs that have been outlined. Some of the 

 more recent of these were that at Madison, Wis., in July, 1920, 



where was organized the National Association of Wood Testing 

 Industries, with a strong forestry committee; a meeting held at 

 Albany at the end of September, which resulted in the formation 

 of an interstate committee — the National Forest Fire Prevention 

 Committee — to further national legislation dealing with forest fire 

 prevention, especially in the matter of securing appropriations from 

 Congress; two committee meetings held during October in New York 

 City, under the auspices of the American Paper and Pulp Asso- 

 ciation, in connection respective!}' with legislation to put the pro- 

 gram of that association into effect, and with tlie exact wording 

 of the report of the Forestry Committee of the Paper and Pulp 

 Association that was presented at Chicago on November 11. 



On Nov. 12 and 13 there was held at Atlantic City, at the call 

 of Alfred Gaskill, State Forester of New Jersey, a meeting of 

 state foresters. Resolutions were adopted by this conference en- 

 dorsing the recommendations of the Forest Service as embodied 

 . in the Capper report, Senate resolution No. 311. A similarly con- 

 stituted conference of state forestry officials has been called by 

 Gov. Sproul of Pennsylvania, to meet at Harrisburg early in Decem- 

 ber, further to consider legislation that will put into effect the pro- 

 posals that have been made in the several programs. Tliis meeting 

 today is important in the bearing that it may have on the policy 

 that New York state may adopt in this connection. 



Federal Control Versus Cooperation with Forest Land Owners 

 Through the States 



So much for the proposals. Let us now contrast briefly the two 

 opposing ideas that characterize the suggestions made, and then 

 see how it is proposed to enact these ideas into law. As the writer 

 has tried to make clear, the programs of the U. 8. Forest Service 

 under Col. Greeley, of the American Paper and Pulp Association, 

 and of the National Lumber Manufacturers' Association, are 

 similar as to essentials, although differing as to details. But they 

 are so nearly alike that the adherents of each have been able to 

 combine on a bill which will be introduced into Congress soon after 

 the opening of the coming session. As yet this bill has not been 

 officially given to the public, but from a study of the programs 

 themselves it is not hard to anticipate about what its provisions 

 will be. I need not rehearse those points here, as I have already 

 described them in commenting on the several programs. The pivot 

 about which all these programs revolve is that the program shall 

 be put into effect through the states individually, in cooperation 

 with the federal government, acting in the person of the Secretary 

 of Agriculture. 



Opposed to this combined jwogram is the idea embodied in the 

 program of the Committee of the Society of American Foresters, the 

 "Pinehot Committee," the central and dominating feature of which 

 is that the timberland policy shall be enforced by a federal com- 

 mission, that shall itself directly regulate the timberland owners 

 in all parts of the country, without relation to local action by any 

 of the states. This is a fundamental difference. The Forest Service- 

 paper and pulp-lumber manufacturers ' plan would vest the power 

 to stop devastation and to regulate the timberland owner in the 

 separate states. The Pinehot plan places this power and authority 

 in the federal government. 



In the judgment of many foresters it is unfortunate that all those 

 who believe that national timberland legislation is essential to the 

 welfare of the nation could not have got together on a common 

 platform. But such harmony of action seems not to be possible. 

 An interchange of letters, that has recently been made public, 

 makes clear that the issue on this vital point is clearly joined 

 between Mr. Pinehot and his adherents and Col. Greeley and his 

 friends in the forest industries. 



Pinehot Ideas Are Before Senate 



A bill incorporating the ideas of the Pinehot group is now before 

 the Senate, having been introduced by Senator Capper of Kansas 

 on May 19, 1920 (S. 4424, Sixtj'-sixth Congress, second session); 

 just a fortnight, by the way, before the date specified in Senate 

 resolution No. 811, for the presentation to the Senate of the so-called 

 Capper report. The Capper bill follows almost identically the 



(Continued on paqe 26) 



