234 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



toward uses of land for agricultural crops, resulting in increasing the 

 area of poorly cultivated and idle cleared land. 



Comments by Dr. L. C. Gray 



Nq^£ — 'The following comments on the foregoing paper were made by Dr. L. 

 C. Gray, Economist in Charge of Land Economics, U. S. Department of Agricul- 

 ture. The author did not change his paper on the basis of these criticisms, some 

 of which he concedes to be, to a large extent, valid. The primary purpose of 

 his article is to arouse interest and provoke discussion, which accounts for the 

 emphasis placed on certain points. 



The central theme of this paper is the necessity of land classification 

 as a means of scientifically selecting lands that shall be devoted to 

 forest uses — whether by public or private agencies. A careful reading 

 of the paper, however, indicates that it involves an argument that 

 official forestry agencies shall use the modus operandi land classification 

 for the purpose of aggressively promoting the expansion of the relative 

 position of forest industry in the industrial life of the Nation. The 

 forest is no longer to be the residual claimant for the use of the land 

 (the conventional position usually assigned to it under the theory of 

 highest use), but is to encroach not only on the twilight zone of un- 

 certainty of economic use, which lies between agriculture and forestry, 

 but also is to invade the present area of "improved land." 



As a basis for such an aggressive point of view with reference to 

 the claims of forests the author attempts to give the reasons for the 

 relative importance of forests as compared with agricultural uses. The 

 reasons are summarized on pages 230 and 231. The detailed rea- 

 sons are grouped under three main headings. I would not under- 

 take to criticize the points made under the second group. The argu- 

 ments advanced are largely technological, involving necessity for stream 

 regulation, improvement of soil fertility, and similar points which are 

 well recognized as furnishing grounds for the policy of public forest 

 reserves. However, the points grouped under 1 and 3 are worth a 

 careful scrutiny. Some of them will not bear critical examination. For 

 instance, (a) under 1 involves the somewhat sentimental statement that 

 "Forests form Nature's climax form of land utilization."' and that 

 "forest crops can be grown continuously by natural reproduction with 

 the least possible effort and expense." I am wondering what compar- 

 ison is implied in the term "least possible effort and expense." It may 

 be presumed that "least" means the comparison with other kinds of 



