EDITORIAL COMMENT 



Is Public Purchase of Private Timber Lands the Only 



Solution ? 



The annual meeting of the Society of American Foresters, held in 

 Baltimore December 27 and 28 (1918), adopted a number of resolu- 

 tions as the attitude of the profession toward important forest prob- 

 lems of the day. These resolutions are printed elsewhere in this issue 

 of the Journal. 



One has especial bearing on the future national forest policy of the 

 United States. It reads as follows : 



Whereas a sustained timber supply adequate in quantity and diversified in 

 quality is alike essential to national defense in war time and national progress in 

 time of peace; and 



Whereas the growing of timber to the larger sizes involves an investment too 

 long in time, with too great hazards and too low a rate of final return for private 

 capital to undertake ; and 



Whereas only 30 per cent of the present forest area and but little more than 20 

 per cent of the existing timber stand is in public forests in the United States — a 

 wholly insufficient basis for the future timber supply of the country — therefore 

 be it 



Resolved, That the Society of American Foresters urge the immediate initia- 

 tion of a permanent policj^ of national and State, or other public acquisition of 

 forest land, until the acreage of publicly owned land capable of producing timber 

 is sufficient eventually to supply the bulk of the raw material required by the 

 nation. 



It is very much to be regretted that such an important resolution, 

 committing the Society of American Foresters to a definite national 

 forest policy, was adopted without any opportunity for deliberation by 

 the entire membership of the Society. Its wording conveyed the im- 

 pression that the Society believed the only solution of the forest prob- 

 lem in this country to lie in the acquisition of forest lands by the public. 

 It has already been interpreted by lumber journals as a frank admission 

 on the part of foresters that private timber owners cannot profitably 

 engage in timber production, and therefore are given a clean bill of 

 health for all the devastation and destruction they may work on the 

 national timber resources in their custody. 



We are far from denying the great importance of public ownership 

 of forest lands for providing the future needs for timber in this coun- 

 try. Xo one has been more ardent in advocating the need for extend- 

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