JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Vol. XVII NOVEMBER, 1919 No. 7 



'flic Society is not responsible, as a body, for the facts and opinions advanced in 

 the papers published by it. 



A PLEA FOR ADJUSTMENT 



By Ernest A. Sterling 



The President of the Society of American Foresters in the May 

 (1919) Journal of Forestry makes a "Plea for Assertion." The in- 

 spiration for this plea or the personal views as expressed are unim- 

 portant, compared with the question of whether the elective head of 

 the Society is correctly setting forth the views of the profession as a 

 whole. This assumed function of spokesman assumes still broader 

 significance after observing the effect of another recent dissertation 

 by the same author on the old-school theme of the wickedness and 

 incompetence of the lumber industry. 



Foresters are urged to assert themselves and are said to lack aggres- 

 siveness. This assumes to throw all foresters into one class. It is 

 fortunate they are not. Very few have dropped back through lack of 

 aggressiveness ; only a minority are still thinking about an American 

 forest practice of the kind seen in traveling through Central European 

 forests. 



American and Canadian foresters have faced an entirely new set 

 of problems, predicated on well-known conditions. In the main, they 

 liave met these problems in an eminently sound and practical manner. 

 Without attempting to accomplish the impossible, they have established 

 the fundamentals and won a stable place for themselves and their 

 profession. Periodic outbursts, because their progress may not have 

 been as fast as desired nor all their doings ideal, are more likely to 

 destroy confidence and cause dissension than to help toward the goal. 



We are to aim at "the practice of forestry in the zvoods." There is 



no clue as to what this "practice of forestry" is to comprise, but the 



point is clearly made that it must be conducted on private land. If 



this "constructive program" is to be carried out "in the woods" and 



^y^these "woods" are private property, it seems logical that the owners 



o^ will, have a mild interest in what is to be done and how. They will 



T3 welcome foresters in their woods and pay the bill, to exactly the 



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