578 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



ment of forest lands could not be stalled off much longer, for the 

 public would insist upon it. It was taken for granted, apparently, 

 that the public would be glad to entrust the solution of the problem to 

 the very industry which is injuring public interests. The supposition 

 involves sublime confidence in the credulity of the people of the United 

 States. 



It was strongly intimated that there was probably need for some 

 manner of regulation from outside the lumber industry when the ma- 

 jority of forest owners wanted it, for otherwise the majority would be 

 left unprotected against the backward fellows. Such an intimation is 

 extremely significant. 



The Western Forestry and Conservation Association introduced a 

 forest program which had been approved by its directors. Lack of 

 space prohibits comment upon it here, although we shall be glad to 

 review it in a later issue. 



F. E. O. 



Compulsory Versus Voluntary Forestry Practice 



I should like to call attention to what I consider may be a fallacy 

 in Dr. Wilson Compton's article, "The Need for Understanding," 

 printed in the Journal of Forestry, March, 1920. 



Dr. Compton makes a special point that compulsory private enter- 

 prise will not secure results which voluntary private enterprise fails to 

 do. Probably in general this is very true if the conditions are other- 

 wise entirely equal. So far as I know, however, none of the programs 

 submitted by foresters contemplate leaving the conditions entirely 

 equal when the attempt is made to compel a stoppage of forest devas- 

 tation; on the contrary, all these plans contemplate greater assistance 

 to the private owner and, to a considerable degree, a lessening of what 

 has in the past been a destructive competition between forest industries. 

 I think when these conditions concerning private enterprise in forestry 

 are changed for the better, there is every reason to believe that private 

 enterprise will be more profitable, and therefore be possible, where in 

 the past it was unprofitable and, therefore, impossible. 



The changes wrought in forest industry, as contemplated by the 

 Pinchot Committee for example, will unquestionably involve holding 

 down the cutting in each organized economic forest unit to an amount 

 such as it can produce continuously under forest management. While 

 it would be unwise to cut off supplies from any existing mill, even if 



