2oi JOURNAL OF FORKSTRY 



tection of virgin stands of timber to be cut at some future time, and 

 except as an incidental precaution for the protection of such virgin 

 stands, hunbermen have no interest whatsoever in fire prevention on 

 their logged-off areas. 



In not a single one of the great timber regions of the country have 

 lumbermen made any sincere, concerted effort to keep their cut-over 

 lands productive. They are still skinning their forest soils to the quick, 

 leaving them wastes or near-wastes, with an eye solely to the immediate 

 dollar. The word skinning may have a familiar sound. It should have, 

 for it was used in this connection more than once by Theodore Roose- 

 velt. It is a much better word than timber-mining and should be 

 brought back into common use. The history of the pine lands of the 

 Lake States is in process of repetition all over the country, and logged- 

 ofif regions are becoming industrially dead, beyond hope of recovery, 

 except by processes so slow and costly as to be almost beyond con- 

 sideration. We are speaking, remember, of lands chiefly valuable for 

 the growth of trees, not of those trifling areas of logged-of¥ land which 

 may be turned to agricultural uses. Even those cut-over lands which, 

 wholly undesigned, are left productive in a small measure represent an 

 enormous potential loss in future production and employment. 



Labor, the world over, is in a state of unrest. We in this country 

 Wave had a touch of extremism from the I. W. W., an organization 

 which all of us would like to see disappear. Perhaps one of the simplest 

 ways to make it disappear would be to do away with the causes of 

 which it is a symptom. The lumber industry, as much as any other, 

 has been to blame for the existence and growth of the I. W. W. The 

 causes have been abominable living conditions, long hours, under-pay, 

 temporary employment, and the creation of industrial wastes through 

 the destruction of the source of raw material. 



The lumber industry is many years behind the times in business 

 intelligence and organization. It guesses at the amount and value of 

 its raw material ; its plans for logging, transporting, and milling this 

 raw material are haphazard; its. knowledge of the real cost of manu- 

 facturing its product is ridiculously vague ; its accounting systems are 

 extremely crude ; its understanding of the uses to which its products 

 are put is childlike, and its fancy as to the amount and value of its 

 stock on hand at any given time is susceptible to wide variations. It is 

 interested in its own business chiefly from the narrow standpoint of 

 plant against plant, region against region. It still clings to the excuse 

 that it is a "pioneer" industry. It is ; for it is endeavoring to do busi- 

 ness on. a pioneer basis long after pioneer days have passed it by. It 



