118 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



prosperity. This is not an occasional occurrence. It is the history of 

 milhons of acres of land unproductive and now an economic desert. 



I am advocating a large program of public forests widely distributed 

 throughout the country, but the solution of the forest i)roblem will not 

 come from public forests alone. Even with the most liberal policy of 

 acquiring additional public forests, the nation's needs with respect to 

 forests in the future will have to be met in considerable part from pri- 

 vate lands. We point to the forests of France as having met a great 

 crisis in the war. Do you know that 60 per cent of the American sup- 

 plies obtained in France came from private forests? 



You may ask if the increasing interest in forestry of private owners 

 and the operation of State forest laws are not likely to bring greatly 

 changed conditions in the near future. Unfortunately this will not be 

 the case, unless a much more comprehensive and effective program is 

 adopted b\- the public and there is a radical change in point of view and 

 methods on the part of most timber-land ow^ners. We should give credit 

 to those individual owners and groups who are endeavoring to handle 

 their timber lands constructively. Great credit, too, is due to the State 

 foresters and their supporters for what they have achieved in the face 

 of public indifference and even hostility. Rut when we consider our 

 forests as a whole, we have hardly begun to stem the tide 'of forest de- 

 struction. Even in the matter of organized fire protection, the effort 

 on private lands is confined chiefly to the protection of the merchanta- 

 ble timber. Cut-over lands and young-tree growth are usually not pro- 

 tected except as may be necessary to safeguard the mature timber, and 

 over a great part of the country there is practically no effort whatever 

 to keep out fires. 



Timber-land owners feel that they cannot change their present meth- 

 ods. They have purchased the land to exploit the timber and not to 

 grow a new crop of trees. For an owner who intends to hold his lands 

 forestry is just as essential as is agriculture to a farmer. But most 

 timber-land owners do not intend to hold their lands after cutting the 

 timber, and they see no reason why they should expend money or effort 

 on the land to secure public benefits or to avoid injury to the com- 

 munity. It is the speculative character of ownership that explains the 

 lack of incentive to timber-land owners to handle their lands construc- 

 tively ; and we may not expect that such owners will take any different 

 view or action on their own initiative. The profits of forestry, though 

 very real, do not furnish in themselves a sufficient incentive to cause 

 the changfe. 



