COMiMENTS ON THE SNELL BILL 489 



To return to the original statement that this is a problem in sales- 

 manship, the Snell Bill places the salesman in the position of insisting 

 that the customer must buy some persimmons in order to procure the 

 plums which he is anxious to have the customer accept. The persim- 

 mons might be very desirable but they should be presented for >ale 

 in a separate container. 



COMMENTS. 

 Bv E. A. Sherman, Associate Forester 



While I feel there is a great deal of merit in Mr. Reynolds' sugges- 

 tion as to bonding, and while it seems to be undoubtedly well adapted 

 to Massachusetts conditions. I do not believe it would be wise -to 

 extend the same idea and the same plan to Federal acquisition of forest 

 lands. In the first place the adoption of such a plan for financing the 

 nation's program of reforestation is not only unsuited to the present 

 financial status of our country but ii'i addition would have an immediate 

 bad effect upon business conditions generally. 



The billions of war bonds issued by the United States are now in 

 the hands of millions of our people. In addition, the Federal Govern- 

 ment has considerable floating indebtedness. Publi.- revenues are 

 being raised on the basis of reducing the floating indebtedness and will 

 be continued upon the basis of providing for the payment of the bonds 

 when due. I suppose that our Federal debt will be reduced at the 

 average rate of approximately five hundred million dollars a year, 

 beginning at least with the next fiscal year. Bonds are now below 

 par. Any proposal to increase our bonded indebtedness would meet 

 with strong opposition and would unquestionably result in loss lo in- 

 numerable small investors. The relatively modest amount needed for 

 silvicultural rehabilitation which, including all activities, will mean 

 a charge of from ten million dollars a year to an ultimate possible one 

 hundred million dollars a year. This expenditure would result in 

 reducing the annual payments on our public debt by not more than 20 

 per cent. 



Furthermore, considering our present financial condition, "t does 

 not appear that there would be any particular adsantage in the bond 

 issue. If we should issue bonds we could pay ofif just that much more 

 of the existing debt, but our indebtedness would be increased by the 

 equivalent amount of bonds. If we do not issue bonds, we pay off 



