24 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



brought from outside. It is unnecessary to add that the presence of 

 forest industry would have furnished unfailing support through employ- 

 ment of the settler when his farm failed to do so. 



The production of this new forest crop, at the same time, would have 

 decreased not at all the output from the stand natu;-e provided. The 

 farmer of the plains wotdd, therefore, not have been deprived of his 

 cheap structural material. Such a policy would have utilized part of 

 the capital which moved on to the West to invest in standing timber 

 which can go on the market no sooner than the new crop from these 

 Wisconsin lands would have been ready to cut. We have, in part, 

 destructive competition — ^mill construction far in excess of needs — to 

 thank for these conditions in Wisconsin. 



Shall we pursue the same policy and get the same result in the South 

 and Pacific Northwest? Not if we can in time realize the tremendous 

 productive possibilities of the forest and permit or, if necessary, require 

 such industrial organizations as will utilize these possibilities. It is 

 obvious enough that limitation of the yield of forests in a given region 

 to what they will continuously produce also automatically limits 

 flooding of the market with forest products. This constitutes the 

 only sound and permanent method of maintaining fair prices during that 

 period in each region when seemingly unlimited mature timber is ready 

 for cutting. Later, under the timber mine policy, regional supplies 

 become exhausted and prices go to great heights because of the distance 

 which timber brought in from other regions has to be transported. 

 Under a forest policy, then, prices are maintained while there is an over- 

 stock of mature timber and held down to reasonable levels later on, 

 when otherwise the freight charge alone is in excess of the necessary 

 stimipage charge under forestry. 



4. Defective methods of distribution. — There is good reason to believe 

 that in this field the wastes are as great as in the producing field, but 

 as these wastes are apparently not reducible to actual figures, so far as 

 any investigation so far made will allow, no estimate can be made as to 

 the actual cost. The wastes here include unnecessary duplication of 

 yards, duplication in selling, and general lack of organization from 

 producer to consumer. Here, again, is a field for careful discrimination 

 as between organizations. It may be that we need to encourage 

 organization of the producer on the one hand and the consimier on 

 the other, in order that they may reach out to each other and effect the 

 transfer of goods as cheaply as possible. Where such organization is 

 assisting in the cheapening of the distributive process, well and good; 



