648 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



not enter into any arrangements with the lumber barons of the State, 

 who were attempting to force on the public immense quantities of cut- 

 over lands. Personally, I did not know that any lumberman had made 

 a proposition to the Governor to purchase any cut-over lands with an 

 idea of reforestation ; but if such a proposition has been made, it was 

 not because the lumberman expected to profit thereby, but because the 

 lumberman saw the necessity of the State following the policy of the 

 United States Government, to either purchase or withdraw from sale 

 suitable land for reforestation purposes. I say, as a lumberman, that 

 we are not interested in this proposition, because capital that is pres- 

 ently employed in the lumber business will be otherwise employed 

 before any lands that might now be segregated for reforestation will 

 produce timber for the market. As a citizen, however, who will find 

 himself in a short period engaged in some other business and be com- 

 pelled to purchase lumber that will be either grown in Texas under 

 reforestation plans of the State, or who will purchase lumber from 

 Washington or Oregon, the lumberman has vital interest in forestry 

 problems, and every other citizen should see this situation plainly. 



A SURVEY OF THE LUMBER INDUSTRY 



When Mr. John H. Kirby was acting as Lumber Administrator for 

 the United States Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corporation, he 

 caused to be taken an extensive survey of the lumber industry of the 

 South. Mr. Kirby and the other lumbermen engaged in making this 

 survey considered themselves fairly familiar with the timber possibili- 

 ties of this section ; but when the results were finally tabulated, showing 

 the amount of available timber and the life of the sawmills now en- 

 gaged in cutting it up, they were astounded to learn that 80 per cent 

 of the sawmills now engaged in the manufacture of yellow pine would 

 be out of business within five years or less. Five years may seem a 

 long time to an industrial enterprise, but five years to the citizenship of 

 the State of Texas is so near at hand that the day of reckoning is not 

 in the future, but is with us now. To the citizen who is considering 

 forestry problems the present system of wild-land taxation is entirely 

 and radically wrong. Under it a man must cut his timber, whether it 

 is ripe or not ; otherwise his taxes will eat it up. 



Now this problem is not one for the lumberman, nor, under existing 

 laws, is it one for any private investment or consideration. Its solu- 

 tion lies wholly with the State. Governments, like men, move only 

 through necessity. Up to the present time the State of Texas, like 



