G02 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



and slhnculturc is the thing we should emphasize above everything 

 else. Protection against fire, important as it is, should be regarded 

 purely as a silvicultural measure, as one of those silvicultural measures 

 essential to the perpetuation of forest growth. The leaving of seed 

 trees, the disposal of slashings, and then the protection of cut-over 

 lands against fire are some of the fundamental silvicultural measures 

 wholly essential, in most regions, to the prevention of forest devasta- 

 tion, devastation directly chargeable to destructive lumbering. When 

 timber is harvested the land must first be left in such shape as to make 

 natural reproduction probable and safe, for otherwise money thereafter 

 spent for protection against fire would be thrown to the winds. Why 

 waste good dollars on the protection of devastated lands? The over- 

 emphasis of the importance of fire protection is an insidious danger, 

 tending to befuddle the real issue. 



The provision that the State should take over private forest land in 

 case the owner fails to take the necessary steps for keeping it pro- 

 ductive, deserves comment. We must readily agree that large addi- 

 tional areas of forest land should be owned by the Federal and State 

 governments. This is a doubtful way to go at the matter, however. 

 Would it not mean that the owner, if he chose to do so, might proceed 

 to devastate his forest land and then sell it to the State, presumably 

 not without profit to himself? Our object is to keep private forest 

 lands productive, not to offer the private owner facilities for unloading 

 his cut-over lands upon the State after they have been skinned and 

 made waste. The time to perpetuate forests is when the timber is 

 cut, not after the harvest when the lands have been so devastated as 

 to be made productive again only through planting at great cost to the 

 State or Nation. 



NATIOXAL LUMBER MANUFACTURERS' ASS0CL\TI0N 



The plan announced by this association was framed by its Forestry 

 Committee and approved by its Board of Directors. July. 1920. 



Federal Legislation 



An appropriation of not less than $1,000,000 annually for co-opera- 

 tion by the Forest Service with States and forest owners willing to 

 "bear an equal or greater share in the costs of locally applicable systems 

 for protecting from fire both forests and forest lands which are 

 restocking. 



