FOREST DEVASTATION 935 



farm crops should be kept at it. Lands which can best produce forest 

 crops should be kept at work growing timber. If, later on, the land 

 can be made to pay better in other crops, the most profitable crop will 

 have the right-of-way. 



We have 100 million acres of idle cut-over lands which are pro- 

 ducing nothing and which are getting leaner with every fire that runs 

 across them. Here and there, mixed in with the low-grade lands 

 which make up the bulk of the cut-over regions, are irregular areas 

 of first-class land which ought to be cleared and under the plow. 

 Some of these tracts are ready to be used now ; others will be needed 

 later on. At present enormous quantities of poor or non-productive 

 lands surround the areas of good soil. Any use which will put the 

 poorer lands at profitable work will be of quick and permanent help 

 to the settler on the good lands adjoining. 



THE FORESTS OF THE FUTURE 



The forests which will be raised from now on will not be tangles of 

 wilderness, left alone for a century or so and then ripped off. so as to 

 leave the country desolate and poor. Instead, they will be carefully 

 tended and protected and, once established, will be permanently pro- 

 ductive. Work in the forests will become a regular and permanent 

 business. The new forests will be cut no faster than they grow, just 

 as the stockman keeps up his herd and still sells off his increase. 



The coming of the new forests will make steady and profitable odd- 

 time and full-time work for the neighboring settlements. With them 

 will come more people, new wood-working industries, and local mar- 

 kets for farm produce. When there is pulp and cordwood, logs and 

 lumber to be shipped out, it will be possible to get and keep such road 

 and railroad transportation as the farming land alone could not 

 maintain. 



No island of farming, mining, or manufacturing industry can ever 

 be as valuable in an ocean of idle waste as when surrounded by steadily 

 productive forests. The use of the poorer soils for forest crops will 

 be profitable to the men and women who are engaged in every sort of 

 occupation, for it will cut down the cost of living and increase the 

 general wealth. But before that can happen forest devastation must 

 stop. 



