News and Notes. 119 



THE PROSPECT. 



For the past twenty 3'ears the cause of forestry has been talked 

 and worked for in this country ; nature lovers, sportsman and 

 economists have been of the workers, as forestry associations, 

 forestry commissions and individuals have they worked. In those 

 twenty years much was done ; departments of forestry have been 

 established under state and national government, state reserves 

 have been created, the vast system of national reserves conceived 

 and carried out, forestry schools founded, and last and most im- 

 portant the education of the people has been accomplished. They 

 have been told of the destruction of the forests, taught that the 

 tree can be cut and the forest preserved, taught that the waters of 

 the lowland are born of the forest. 



A new era is opening, one in which we will no longer talk why 

 anything is to be done, but of what is to be done, and how to do 

 it, an era when forest preservation has ceased to be a question of 

 sentiment and foresight but of actual economic necessity. 



It is the lumberman who finally will preserve the forest, not for 

 its beauty, for its benefit to the community, but for the reason 

 which led him to destroy it, his own financial benefit. Do we 

 find any evidence that this state is approaching, that the lumber- 

 man is ready to cut without destruction, to sacrifice the present 

 for the future ? 



TIMBER WASTE. 



One of our Chicago contemporaries, in an article on " High 

 Stumps and Short Product," calls attention to the practical 

 econom}^ that might be effected by cutting the trees closer to the 

 ground, and seems to think the time has come when this should 

 receive attention on the part of Southern pine manufactures. We 

 are in hearty sympathy with every movement along this line, and 

 would not say a word of discouragement against any suggested 

 plan of timber saving. The extra unnecessary height of the 

 stump in yellow pine, however, is almost an inconsiderable part 

 of the waste. Where there is one yellow pine tree where a real 

 saving could be effected by cutting the stump lower than is usual 

 or customary, there are two or three where the stump is cut extra 

 high on purpose to get rid of worthless wood or where a short 

 "cut" is actually .sawed off and discarded after the tree is 



