47-i JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



weight is to be placed on computations which bring out such diverse 

 conclusions from the same data. 



But the Committee seems to me to have subordinated to far too 

 great an extent one main aspect of the matter. The topic in mind I 

 can illustrate by recounting something that happened to me years ago, 

 more than 25 years certainly, in the early days of my connection 

 with forestry. Maine was my field then ; I was advocating careful and 

 conservative handling of spruce timberlands, and in the course of con- 

 versation some plain but clear-headed man remarked that if I owned a 

 township of such land no one would make any objection to my han- 

 dling it that way if I wanted to. And the fact is I might have done 

 that very thing. Take a specific case and see what might have resulted 

 from it. About 1895 a Maine sawmill concern, having cut over a half 

 township that they owned, objected to the tax valuation of $5,000, told 

 the State assessors they would not only sell it for that but pay a bonus 

 to anyone who would bring them a customer at that figure. I knew 

 of this occurence, had been on the land, and knew there was a lot of 

 growth on it ; also I had the money and might have bought it. It 

 started some pointed thinking two or three years ago when I learned 

 that, after yielding heavy revenue meanwhile, the same tract had lately 

 figured in a deal at $25 an acre. 



Now good, careful handling of that tract would have been forestry, 

 would it not ? And I think it must be clear that the same thing would 

 have been profitable. That understood in a broad way, the question 

 arises in my mind : Why should not foresters manage a large share 

 of our timberlands in this direct, natural way, and in so doing insure 

 that, as far as practicable, the principles of their profession are put 

 in practice? 



I can answer in my own case, and will. For one thing I was too 

 single-mindedly bent on the development of forestry in the way in 

 which most of us view it — as a great public interest — to be satisfied to 

 be in it solely as a matter of profit. I do not now regret my course, 

 and, that being the case, certainly have no fault to find with the man 

 whose temperament and qualifications lead him in the same direction. 



But I think there was another element in the matter, too — that I 

 didn't have the vision and nerve to do it. In other directions I had 

 enough, for it took both for a man to throw his interests in with 

 forestry in those days, but for this particular thing I hadn't. And the 

 same considerations have held since, for time and again in my career 

 I have seen opportunity to do profitable business and put forestry in 



