96 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Attempts have been made, of course, to cloud the issue before us. 

 Lumbermen have argued that the private owner can not afiford to plant 

 young trees on his devastated lands. Nobody has suggested that he 

 be compelled to plant. It is stated that the private owner can not 

 afford to hold his cut-over lands from sixty to one hundred years for 

 another crop of timber. Nobody has asked that he be forced to do so. 

 It is mentioned that we have timber enough left on the Pacific Coast 

 for some years to come. Nobody has denied it. It is claimed that 

 better protection against fire is all that is needed to prevent forest 

 devastation. This is misleading. Bettef- protection against fire is, 

 of course, essential ; but in order to justify the expense of protecting 

 cut-over lands, we must see that forests are harvested in such a way 

 as to leave a young growth of trees which is worth protecting. 



It has been advanced, in terms so equivocal as to make it necessary 

 to translate them into straight-forward English before answering, that 

 the growing of trees is not necessarily a wise policy under all possible 

 circumstances. Nobody believes that it is. It has been asked what 

 this embryo disturbance is about, and why it should be necessary to 

 stir up a lively interest in forest afifairs at the present time. The 

 report of the Pinchot Committee and the campaign launched by Colonel 

 Graves are direct answers to those queries. It has been suggested that 

 foresters and lumbermen sit down together and adjust matters. The 

 futility of such a course has been amply demonstrated for the past 

 fifteen years, and has been clearly exemplified during the year just 

 passed. The lumber industry as a whole has been and still is tremen- 

 dously inert and permeated with a spirit of indifference toward changes 

 in its methods necessary for the safeguarding of public interests. As 

 in all other great movements for industrial, economic or social prog- 

 ress, this inertia and indift'erence may be overcome only by means of 

 pressure from without. Once more, the adjustment necessary is one 

 between the public and the lumberman; an adjustment in which the 

 lumberman will be brought to recognize that the public has a direct 

 interest in the way in which he treats his forest lands, and in which 

 the public will be forced to recognize that the continuous and prosper- 

 ous operation of the lumber industry is of vital importance to the 

 general welfare. 



We have been referred to as theorists, and radicals, and general 

 disturbers of the sylvan peace. As for theory, it strikes me that both 

 lumbermen and foresters need much more of it. The implication 

 that we are suggesting action of a radical nature is ingenious. When 



