REVIEWS 559 



ooo.ooo; that it employs some 12,000 workers, and that it involves an 

 annual expenditure of $20,800,000, or sufficient to support more than 

 14 per cent of the entire population of the State (on $1,200 per family 

 per year!). The magnitude of the industry is also shown by various 

 calculations as to the length of the imaginary train necessary to haul 

 the forest products cut in Montana in 1916, the thousands of miles of 

 sidewalk they would make, the number of modern 5-room cottages they 

 would build, etc. 



If one were inclined to be critical, he might hint that Mr. Preston 

 tends to stretch a point occasionally in his effort to drive home what the 

 forests really mean to the people of the State, as, for example, in includ- 

 ing transportation wholly as a labor cost. But such slips are of minor 

 importance, and the general picture that he presents is not only force- 

 ful, but undoubtedly true. One cannot help wishing, however, that he 

 had expanded or explained his statement that "Any one familiar with 

 logging and lumbering operations realizes that this is a very risky and 

 hazardous business and is entitled to a higher margin, to insure a fair 

 industrial return, than almost any other line of business." While this 

 may be true under present conditions, it is only so because the principal 

 factors that make the business hazardous, such as fire danger, labor diffi- 

 culties, and over-production, are in large part caused by the unstable and 

 speculative character of the industry itself. European experience has 

 demonstrated amply that where the forests are managed on the basis of 

 a sustained annual yield, their production and utilization forms one of 

 the safest rather than one of the most hazardous of businesses. With 

 the stabilization of conditions afforded by the practice of forestry, the 

 large profit now demanded by the lumber industry would be unjustified, 

 with a corresponding reduction in price to the consumer. 



Mr. Preston's conclusions are of sufficient interest, to foresters as well 

 as to others, to justify quoting at some length : 



"When we consider that the future expansion in the lumber industry will mean 

 the support of two or three times this number of people (70,000), that the lands 

 which support timber must (except for a very small percentage) continue to grow 

 timber or become non-productive waste land, that the future of the business is en- 

 tirely within our hands — to develop and conserve and stabilize or allow to expand 

 and grow disproportionately as a mushroom, leaving nothing for future genera- 

 tions — we begin to realize that the preservation and the right use of this resource 

 is a matter of very great public concern. . . . What is needed is a strong For- 

 estry Department of the State Government, which, through constant study of the 

 problem, will be able to formulate a far-sighted forest policy and ask the support 

 of the people and the legislature in carrying it out. . . . With the broad and far- 

 reaching purposes of forestry in mind, I have attempted to indicate more specific- 

 ally a few of the things the State should do in the immediate future. 



