238 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



took the Kirby data as a basis for some thorough study of the situ- 

 ation, found when he first got hold of it that it was partial and wrong, 

 and is about ready to publish results of his late work, which has cost, 

 so he told me, some $15,000. 



Fourth, what basis have you for the statement that New England 

 stumpage of any kind is worth $50 ? I own some myself that I would 

 be mighty glad to realize on it at that rate. 



Fifth. I question the accuracy of your last sentence on page 27, 

 looking at the matter not temporarily, but as a long range proposition. 

 I had to quiet others in respect to the length they wanted to go in 

 1915 after our study of the stumpage situation, thinking it well not to 

 go to extremes. In the same way I feel that you are going a little far 

 the other way. 



I will not take up any more specific points, but will make one further 

 suggestion in a broad way. If you are so sure that forestry is the 

 best paying thing in your region (you have been asserting it for some 

 years now), it seems to me that you ought to be able to convince some- 

 body who is in a position to put it in practice. There are keen and 

 open-minded men among them. Why not focus on one or two and 

 put the matter to the test? That is what I used to do when in Maine, 

 and sometimes with this result — that I found there were holes in my 

 own position. The effort was not thereby lost, however, for what was 

 sound and practicable in the ideas, I had got sifted out and in some- 

 thing of a field actually put in practice. 



Again, I say I am not captious in this matter, but solicitous for the 

 truth and for sound progress based thereon. I am not taking public 

 part in the discussion now going on, but I am in hearty sympathy with 

 the effort Colonel Graves is making, took great satisfaction in a con- 

 ference he and I had recently with a group of Southern lumbermen, 

 and I think my personal work is contributing to progress more than 

 I could do by writing. Just as I did in Maine years ago, now in the 

 South I am trying to get things actually brought to pass^ — the practicable 

 things that can now be done, the things that mean at the same time 

 good business and conservation. I believe I am having some success 

 at that, that this will lead to further advances, and I truly believe that 

 we should get along faster if more of us were working on these lines 

 at the expense even of some public discussion. Not that I think that 

 needless, however. 



Very truly yours, 



Austin Gary, 



Logging Engineer. 



