FOKKSTS AND HUMAN PROGRESS •>! 



of the forester — the timber farmer — hjis now arrived in practically all 

 densely populated countries of the world, and his work is to secure 

 forest crops by human skill just as food crops are now being secured. 

 Nor is the less material role of the forest being overlooked. In order 

 to offset deterioration in the physical and ethical well-being of the 

 people crowded in industrial centers with poor housing facilities, state 

 and municipal forests are being established as a source of healthy re- 

 creation for the densely populated countries of Europe. 



"The new forest may be different from the original forest which 

 once occupid the ground. It certainly bears a more utilitarian aspect. 

 The trees that are being grown are not always of the kind that nature 

 would prefer to produce under given conditions of climate and soil, 

 but are those which man needs most. Just as intensive farming has 

 increased the production of the land, so the forester is now producing 

 five to ten times as much useful material as nature unaided produced 

 before. Although the man-made forest may not have the beauty and 

 grandeur of the wild woods which were the result of the free play of 

 natural forces, it has a new beauty — the beauty of orderliness and use- 

 fulness. It is no less an important factor in civilization from the 

 ethical and geographical point of view, because at present the economic 

 principle is applied to it, as it is now being applied to the raising of 

 agricultural crops." 



After reading the evidence presented by the author it seems to be the 

 inexorable rule that nations do not begin the practice of better forestry 

 methods until great inroads have been made on their natural forest 

 resources. In the early stages forests overwhelm them, next they 

 overwhelm the forest, using some of their products much like an un- 

 sportsmanlike hunter kills more game than he can possibly use. Finally, 

 in those nations that have reached a high enough civilization to think 

 of the futiu-e, a halt is called and better forest methods are introduced. 



In spite of the many admirable features of Zon's articles there are 

 some statenients that cannot go wholly unchallenged. In his efforts to 

 make a strong case in favor of the influence of the forest on human 

 civilization, he has neglected other factors that are perhaps more in- 

 fluential. This is of course natural and perhaps due in part to the 

 wide field covered by the subject. 



Thus under the heading "Exploitation of forests the chief cause of 

 their disappearance" is this sentence, "It is the increased need for the 

 products of the forest itself, particularly its timber, that has made the 

 heaviest inroads on it." Is this true? Even in the United States and 

 Canada where modern logging machinery has been most rapidly devel- 

 oped, the inroads made by exploitation have not destroyed as great 



