EDITORIAL COMMENT 589 



It would not do to devote all agricultural land to the raising of cereals, 

 for instance, even if it should be found that the maximum number of 

 calories of food could be produced by doing so. 



In forestry the same rule holds. The "timber-miner," who only 

 harvests what Nature produced, and cares nothing for the future, has 

 no use for forest research. But for a growing nation, whose forests 

 imder present methods are producing but a fraction of its needs, and 

 even under the best methods that can be applied with our present knowl- 

 edge will produce little more than enough for merely present needs, such 

 research is of fundamental importance. 



Foresters have yet barely scratched the surface in the study of 

 American forests. It is not enough to know that certain methods of 

 cutting in the Southern Appalachians, for instance, will be followed 

 hy reproduction, and that such reproduction will grow rapidly and 

 produce valuable timber. It is necessary to know what method will 

 produce the most valuable timber, or the timber which will best meet 

 the national needs and at the most reasonable cost ; it is necessary to 

 know just what species or mixture of species will succeed best under 

 each given set of conditions ; it is necessary to be able to say definitely 

 in advance just what will be the yield of a given species managed in 

 a given way on a specific tract of land, and what it will cost to produce it. 



From the standpoint of the private owner it will not be enough to say 

 that by adopting such and such a method he will make a profit ; he wants 

 lo know how he can get the largest possible return from his investment 

 in land, labor, and money. From the standpoint of the nation, it is 

 not enough to know that certain methods will result in continuous forest 

 production on forest soils ; it is necessary to know which of several 

 methods will best accomplish this result, and what methods will insure 

 the proper proportion of different sizes, and of different grades of 

 material, and of different species. 



We have reached a turning point in the development of forestry in 

 this country. There are ample social, economic, production, and growth 

 data to clearly show the need for a change in our methods of handling 

 •our timber lands. No further data are necessary to prove to any in- 

 telligent observer of our forest conditions that unless our cut-over 

 lands, unsuited for agriculture, are turned back into forest production, 

 we shall in the near future be at a serious economic disadvantage. 



Foresters have a sufificiently well-worked-out plan for remedial legis- 

 lation and enough of basic knowledge for formulating some simple 

 silvicultural procedure by which to maintain continuous production in 

 -each forest region. But even as it is, if the forestry profession were 



