THE WORK AHEAD 231 



that our forests are disappearing — in some localities rapidly, in others 

 slowly. Our main concern is to keep forest lands productive in all 

 localities, aiming at the general welfare through permanent local pros- 

 perity. 



Bear in mind that the private owner is harvesting 98 per cent of the 

 yearly cut of timber in the United States and that he is making wastes 

 or near-wastes of his cut-over lands. He must practice forestry to such 

 an extend as may be necessary to keep his logged-off lands producing 

 timber. Is it a practical thing for him to do this? It is. He has not 

 done it heretofore because of his profound inertia, and will not do it 

 in the future until the public takes occasion to disturb his profound 

 inertia. Both occasion and disturbance are long overdue. 



The lumberman is holding and paying taxes on his worthless, or 

 near-worthless, cut-over lands on the gambler's chance that "something 

 may turn up" later on to make them of value. Examples have been 

 before him for many years, indicating that he might give them one 

 reasonably assured value from the very start. If he had taken the 

 trouble to investigate he would have found that with little or no increase 

 in his logging costs his lands could have been kept producing trees, thus 

 taking on a definite potential worth which almost from the very begin- 

 ning could have been discounted to present worth in dollars and cents. 

 If he had taken the trouble to investigate he would have found that 

 any increase in logging costs could usually have been almost entirely 

 counterbalanced by resultant savings in woods and mill. If he had 

 taken the trouble to investigate he would have found, from practical 

 logging operations carried on under forestry methods, that when forests 

 are decently treated they can be made to reproduce themselves on cut- 

 over lands to excellent advantage. The tiresome plea that the long- 

 sufifering consumer would have to bear any possible increased cost of 

 production is hardly worth discussion, for such possible increase could 

 be saved many times over if the lumber industry were efficiently instead 

 of inefficiently managed. The decent treatment of forests would be a 

 decided step toward efificiency. Moreover, the private owner of a valu- 

 able natural resource, placed entirely at his mercy many years ago 

 through a short-sighted policy of state, is under a distinct obligation to 

 give that resource decent treatment, even if his own immediate profits 

 should be slightly affected thereby ; and in case he fails to see this obli- 

 gation, the public should convince him that it exists. 



Cut-over lands, of course, must be protected against fire. Here, 

 again, the cost is nominal, as experience has shown. Moreover, it need 

 hardly be argued that the owner of forest property, whether that prop- 



