360 JOURNAL OF FORESTKV 



their best to make this gloomy prophecy of a vanishing timber supply 

 come true. Millions of acres have been stripped of their timber, burned 

 over, and abandoned. That these areas are not today entirely barren 

 is not due to any care bestowed upon them by their owners, but to the 

 fact that the forest is hard to exterminate. Thanks to this fact many 

 cut-over areas, in spite of continued neglect and abuse, are covered 

 with a growth of some kind, which, however unsatisfactory, is sufficient 

 proof that timber is not a crop which can be grown but once. 



As a matter of fact, every school-boy knows that timber, like wheat 

 or cotton or any other agricultural product, can be grown again and 

 again, the only difference being that a longer period is required to bring 

 ihe timber to maturity. And every forester knows that by a proper 

 cirrangement of age classes in any given forest it is entirely possible to 

 harvest the same amount of timber year after year. In other words, 

 there is no reason why the business of timber production should not be 

 as stable- and as permanent as the business of wheat production. The 

 only requisite is to practice forestry. 



Even if it be true that there is "not the slightest possibility of an in- 

 creased supply from the development of new fields," it by no means 

 follows that the visible supply of timber is all that the world has to 

 depend on. Careful calculations indicate that, so far as this country is 

 concerned, a forest area considerably less than that which we now have 

 would, if properly managed, be sufficient to meet the real needs of the 

 country for wood indefinitely. Not only this, but the placing of the 

 forests on the basis of a sustained annual yield would do much to re- 

 lieve the difficulties under which the lumber industry is now laboring. 

 It would do away with the various evils resulting from the lack of 

 permanence that has always been so characteristic of the industry : 

 would provide a stock of thriftily growing young trees capable of meet- 

 ing carrying charges and taxes ; would abolish the annual depletion 

 charge which must be met when the forest is treated as a mine ; and by 

 placing the business on a stable instead of a speculative basis would 

 make possible the borrowing of money at a lower rate of interest. 



In its editorial columns the American Lumberman comments that the 

 brief filed with the Commissioner of Internal Revenue "is convincing 

 in the thoroughness of its logic." It is to be hoped that the strange 

 "logic" regarding the future of the timber supply does not really repre- 

 sent the views of lumbermen generally. If it does, the only conviction 

 it is apt to bring to the general public is that the forests of the country 

 are in unsafe hands, since their present guardians look upon them not 

 as a permanent asset, but as a mine, to be depleted and then abandoned. 



