BASIC PROBLEMS IN FOREST PATHOLOGY 217 



activity. It can not come until far-sighted legislation has paved the 

 way. Until then, all we can, and must do, if we have any sense of 

 statesmanship, if we believe in the future of forestry, is with all our 

 energy to prepare for the coming work, to put our earnest research 

 to the service of the future forest, to avoid as best we can any 

 unnecessary injury to the legitimate interests of generations still 

 unborn. There is no time to be lost. 



Meanwhile the American forester is called upon to properly utilize 

 the immense stores of timber on virgin forests in Government or 

 private ownership. Two diametrically opposed practices have de- 

 veloped. One, based on immediate returns, concerns itself little, if at 

 all, about the future of the area cut off. Its aim is, with least cost, to 

 turn into cash the accumulated growth of centuries, and it considers 

 cull in the broadest sense of the word, as unavoidable loss. The other, 

 more conservative system, as practiced by the Government, while 

 undoubtedly making as full use as possible of its timber, is ever 

 mindful of the constructive side of forestry. Conscious of its duties 

 to the present generation arising from its position as the largest indi- 

 vidual timber owner of the nation, the Government can not overlook 

 the fact that every act as well as every omission must of necessity 

 have its bearing, beneficial or injurious, on the forest of tomorrow. 

 The times of opportunism, of makeshift policies, has passed long ago. 

 We live in a period of deliberate and conscious planning, of formu- 

 lating a definite and far-sighted program for the future. 



This program, aiming at the slow, gradual conversion of the virgin 

 forest into regulated forests, while utilizing to the full the present 

 stock of timber, can not but take into account the nature of the virgin 

 forest, which forms the very antithesis to the normal. It must con- 

 sider risk of loss in standing timber from decay, windfall, lightning, 

 insects, etc., as cumulative^ and shape its policies in such a manner 

 as to minimize this loss as much as possible. Obviously, only part of 

 the loss is really unavoidable, the rest is avoidable if only we know^ 

 the casual factors and learn to control them. Silviculture will look 

 to forest pathology for the solution of these problems, and unless 

 forest pathology is satisfied with being one of the many specialized 

 branches of general plant pathology, it will have to grasp this golden 

 opportunity and deliberately adopt the forester's point of view. The 



1 Meinecke, E. P. "Forest Pathology- in Forest Regulation." U. S. Dept. Agr. 

 Bull. No. 275, Professional Paper, p. 9. 



