JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Vol. XVII MARCH, 1919 No. 3 



THE WORK AHEAD 



By Frederick E. Olmsted, 

 President, Society of Aiiicrican Foresters **'» 



While the world is engaged in directing its course along happier 

 ways, the American forester rejoices in the feeling that his profession 

 must play an important part in the great changes to come. 



The forester is concerned with the management of a natural resource 

 of distinct importance to the public welfare. The bulk of the forests 

 of the United States are in private ownership and are being used most 

 unwisely from the viewpoint both of the present owners and of the 

 public. Lumbermen, the private owners, are, as a class, distressingly 

 stupid ; foresters, so far as the destruction of forests by lumbermen is 

 concerned, are decidedly torpid ; forestry in this country is stagnant. 



The forester knows about trees, without which life would be uncom- 

 fortable. All of us, including the lumberman, know that wood will 

 always be a thing of great value. Trees, as distinguished from other 

 natural resources, such as coal or copper, have a peculiar value, be- 

 cause they are living things and, if decently treated, perpetuate them- 

 selves. The forester knows that the forest may be treated in such a 

 decent way that it will produce wood in perpetuity while being cut and 

 manufactured into the many products so essential to the world's com- 

 fort and development. The forester knows, as does the lumberman, 

 that if a forest is not decently treated it stops reproducing and dies, 

 becoming of such passing value as the bones of its ancient ancestor, the 

 vein of coal. The forester knows that the kind of management given 

 in the immediate future to forest lands of the United States will have 

 an important influence upon the economic and social growth of the 

 countrv in years to come. The lumberman refuses to look upon his 

 -'industry from a viewpoint extending beyond his immediate, individ- 

 i? ualistic interests, and in stupidly keeping to this narrow outlook he is 

 injuring himself as well as the public. He is killing his forests. 



Forestry is the science and art of managing forests in continuity for 

 forest purposes — that is, for wood supplies and forest influences. It 



