458 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



age of fencing material is so acute in the prairie regions, why not 

 estabhsh some forests of quickly growing species of fence post woods, 

 such as atalpa, to meet the situation ? The farmer who bemoans the 

 lack of cheap v/hite pine boards for fencing purposes does not arouse 

 the least sympathy in the writer. If he wants- to build a fence why 

 should he not use something more permanent and substantial and leave 

 the white pine boards for some other purpose for which a substitute 

 cannot so readily be found? During the recent war many substitute 

 foods were used which ordinarily no one would have thought of using. 

 Why cannot the same methods of use be applied to many of the here- 

 tofore little used lower grade substitutes for good grades of lumber? 

 A campaign along this line led by such agencies as the Forest Products 

 Laboratory should help solve the problem of timber shortage. An 

 embargo on exports and ccntrol of lumber consumption appears more 

 feasible than control of lumber production as proposed by the 

 Committee. 



8y Hlers Koch 



The plan of the Pinchot Committee is to my mind an idealistic plan to 

 accomplish by the magic short-cut of paternalistic legislation an end 

 which cannot possibly be attained except through a long period of ad- 

 justment, and the gradual working of the economic laws of supply and 

 demand. It is, to be sure, a consummation devoutly to be wished to 

 place all of the forest lands of the United States in a productive condi- 

 tion and under systematic management at one stroke, through the man- 

 date of a legislative body, but big economic reforms are not and have 

 not been accomplished in any such summary manner. 



The production of agricultural crops in the United States could 

 doubtless be greatly increased if every farmer raised pure-bred stock, 

 and used the most approved methods of agriculture, but no one advo- 

 cates legislation placing the farms of the country under the direction 

 of a Federal commission with authority to specify his rotation of crops 

 and method of working the land. The impracticability is recognized at 

 once, and so the Government, through its experiment stations and pub- 

 lications, proceeds to raise the standards through the slow process of 

 education, and when a hard-headed farmer becomes convinced that 

 there is more money in it, he gets rid of his scrub cows and spreads 

 his manure on the fields instead of leaving it to leach out in the 

 barnvard. 



