DISCUSSION OF THE PINCHOT REPORT 459 



So it is with the practice of forestry. It cannot be done under com- 

 pulsion. Unless a timber owner's heart is in it and his pocketbook 

 back of it, the practice of forestry cannot be enforced. Consider how 

 difficult it is to enforce the terms of a timber-sale contract on Govern- 

 ment land, and then imagine attempting to enforce Federal regulations 

 in a logging operation on the operator's own land, and perhaps against 

 his will and his financial interests. It cannot be done. 



What are we going to do, then? According to the figures a timber 

 famine is impending, the forest land of the country is being devastated, 

 and the productive area constantly reduced. The long-time factor in 

 growing a crop of timber makes it imperative to stop the devastatiori of 

 the timberlands before it is too late. 



Ninety per cent of the devastation of timberlands in the United 

 States is due, not to unwise and unrestricted logging, but to logging 

 followed by fire. If the fire situation can be handled, most of the cut- 

 over lands will grow a new crop, perhaps not the best that a forester 

 could produce through the best silvicultural measures, but with the 

 element of fire eliminated we would not need to worry about a timber 

 shortage. The natural second growth would keep most of the land 

 producing until the time is reached when the land can be taken over 

 for systematic forestry. 



Why not, then, concentrate on the one problem of protecting the 

 forests and cut-over lands from fire and leave the regulation and silvi- 

 cultural management of the lands to the future? Compulsory fire 

 protection falls in an entirely dilTerent category from enforced silvicul- 

 tural measures. It is a necessary police measure for the safety of other 

 timberland owners. No man can allow his land to burn without endan- 

 germg the rights of others. The bull law of many of the Western 

 range States afford a parallel condition. These laws prohibit a stock- 

 grower from turning a scrub bull on the open range because to do so 

 effects the interests of other stockmen, but none of these States at- 

 tempts to specify what breed of stock he shall raise or how he shall 

 handle his stock on his own pastures. There is a limit to paternal 

 legislation. 



Enforced fire protection on privately owned timberlands can be 

 handled through State legislation, encouraged and aided through lib- 

 eral Federal appropriations. If the timberlands are protected from 

 fire their ultimate disposition will work itself out. If forestry can be 

 made to pay private capital will be interested in it. If it docs not pay 



