SOME ASPECTS OF FOREST MANAGEMENT 211 



the point has been made from time to time that the practice of forestry 

 will tend to stabilize forest employment and to make for permanent 

 community life. Compared, however, with the efforts made to ad- 

 vance forestry for the benefit of the consumer and the business interests 

 of the country, how much have we done as to the social results of an 

 industry of homeless men? 



Stable employment and community life will not, of course — even 

 under forestry — come about of their own accord. These are things 

 which must be deliberately worked for. A crucial point here,, with 

 respect to forest management, is the size of the working circle. Tt may 

 make little difference, from the standpoint of timber supply, whether 

 the working circle occupies a township or a State, but from the stand- 

 point of the worker it makes all the difference in the world. Tf he can 

 reach the same spot at the end of each day, he can establish a home 

 there and a family life ; but if he cannot reach the one spot, he must 

 live in a camp and will then soon establish a hobo life. 



In forest management in which the working circle is based on the 

 needs of the workers (consistently, of course, with the needs of effi- 

 cient operation) there would be two kinds of forest communities. One 

 of these would be supported by the sawmill operation and the other 

 by the logging operation. From the standpoint of what is physically 

 possible, a sawmill located on a suitable site could, under a proper system 

 of forest management, be continuously supplied with timber from the 

 growth on land tributary ; and the sawmill community could remain 

 permanently on one location. The headquarters of the logging opera- 

 tion, however, could not always be planned so as to remain on one site, 

 and so the logging community might have to be relocated from time to 

 time. 



It is of course highly desirable that the logging community be re- 

 located as seldom as possible. The greater the daily working radius 

 from a given point, the longer can the headquarters remain at that 

 point and the fewer will be the movings of the community during a 

 rotation. Consequently special effort should be made to increase the 

 daily working distance through improved transportation. This is simply 

 the commuter's problem as applied to forest management. 



There is another problem beside that of commuting in connection 

 with the logging community. This is the matter of organizing the com- 

 munity so that it will not fall apart when — every lo or 20 years — it may 

 have to be relocated. If it is to preserve its integrity and be something 

 more than a "shack town." the logging community must be developed 

 so as to meet certain definite standards: The first of these is self-gov- 



