SUGGESTION FOR REAPPROACHMENT 



467 



reached in a spirit of fair dealing and a tolerance of a difference of 

 opinion, and a slowness to ascribe unworthy motives to an opponent 

 who believes that the cause of forestry may be forwarded in what 

 appears to him a more reasonable and practical way. 



On my own behalf and in justice to my business associates, I 

 simply want to call to Mr Chapman's attention that our company 

 was the first private concern in this country to hire a professional 

 forester about twenty-five years ago, to try out various systems of 

 selective cutting and top lopping since then, to sell in the New England 

 States timber reserves to the Federal Government, and last year in- 

 augurated a system of planting two trees for each one cut in New 

 England. Our determination to do this was not based on an idea 

 it would be especially profitable. Also, call his attention to three 

 laws passed the current year in New Hampshire; one for placing in 

 the hands of the State Forester a slash disposal law for administration 

 around camps, main roads, and between owners; the second to pre- 

 serve seed trees on cut over pine lands ; and third a law to make com- 

 pulsory fire protection on owners of over one thousand acres of timber. 

 I believe we have made progress in New Hampshire, because there 

 was an honest desire of co-operation between the foresters and the 

 lumbermen, and a willingness to believe the motives actuating each 

 other were patriotic and unselfish. Figures on the cost of brush dis- 

 posal in northern forests can be had from the experiments carried 

 on by pulp companies in Quebec at the request of the Canadian For- 

 estry Association. It would be interesting to verify their conclusions 

 by experiment in New England, in which I would gladly join, to 

 determine their relative value in cost and result obtained. My opinion 

 as to just compensation for the public use of private property has 

 been known for some years and naturally rests on the degree of loss 

 sustained and the public necessity therefor, and as such is shared. I 

 believe, by Colonel Greeley and most of the fair-minded foresters. 



In conclusion, Colonel Greeley has taken a long step in advance 

 in securing the co-operation of timber owners in support of the Snell 

 bill, and can be relied upon to be fair in its enforcement, and ought to 

 be supported in his very practical program by everyone in this country 

 interested in preserving the forests. I believe timber users need 

 foresters and forester? should not divorce themselves from timber 

 users, and that attempts to create a line of cleavage between the two 

 is unfortunate for forestry and that Mr. Chapman's general conclusion 

 that timber users "cannot be expected to prefer the public interests in 

 legislation to their own interests, much as they would like to do the 

 fair thing," is not a fair statement of the case and that Mr. Chapman 

 did not mean it in this way. 



