COMMENTS OX THE FORESTRY PROGRA:.: ICi' 



plete recovery. In the opinion of some of the lumber journals, the 

 "doctors" represented by this Committee have diagnosed the case, 

 condemned the patient for allowing himself to get in such condition, 

 prescribed the remedy, and presented the bill, without ever having 

 been summoned in the first place to prescribe for the patient. One of 

 the biggest mistakes that can be made during a consideration of the 

 issue is to criticise the lumber industry for the present situation, and 

 to charge it with responsibility for all the bad practices which have 

 been followed in the lumber world during the development of the 

 country. 



Others have called attention to the fact that the basic error was the 

 policy of the Government in past years in allowing the title to timber- 

 land to pass so freely into private ownership. The lumbermen of to- 

 day are assuredly not responsible for that, nor are they responsible for 

 the complex economic conditions which have made it necessary for 

 them to conduct their business on the basis on which it has been con- 

 ducted. Under the economic conditions which have existed during the 

 past quarter of a century the exploitation of our lumber resources has 

 been inevitable. We cannot condemn capital for not retaining cut- 

 over forest lands and making provision for another forest crop when 

 such a policy is not financially practicable. 



The history of financial enterprise in the United States shows that 

 wherever there is any reasonable assurance of monetary return, capital 

 is ready to invest, and it is idle to argue that the lumbermen of the 

 United States have not been alive to investment possibilities in this 

 respect. Even though there may be honest differences of opinion as 

 to the responsibilities of the lumbermen, it is m.ost certainly worse than 

 futile to subject the industry to such attacks as have occasionally ap- 

 peared in the Journal of Forestry. When a scientific journal which 

 represents the professional foresters of the United States comes out 

 with a statement that "lumbermen, the private owners, are as a class, 

 distressingly stupid." we can hardly expect those same lumbermen to 

 respond agreeably to a program which involves an extensive reorgani- 

 zation of their industry, and which in fact might have disastrous re- 

 sults to their financial interests. 



The recognition by the Government of the essential fact that proper 

 forest management requires the financial support of the nation gives 

 promise of the ultimate success of the movement : the lack of such 

 support would have resulted in ultimate failure. The one great reason 

 for the lack of success of past efforts in the direction of apjilied lor- 



