

JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Vol. XV MARCH, 1917 No. 3 



HOW LUMBERMEN IN FOLLOWING THEIR OWN 



INTERESTS HAVE SERVED THE PUBLIC ' '^^VAie» 



By Austin Gary 

 Logging Engineer, forest Service 



As Government employes, and back of that from our educational 

 history, most of us are to some extent separated from the run of our 

 countrymen. W-e are in a friendly organization ; the pay check comes 

 regularly; a type of mind that is not the most common one caused us 

 to gravitate here. This might lead to one-sided development and lack 

 of appreciation of outside things and the life of the common man. 

 The scramble of ordinary American life might, in fact, get to look 

 unattractive and sordid. I do not assert the fact, but I say there is 

 that possibility. And if such a thing should come to pass the result 

 would be bad, for the duty incumbent on men in our position, the 

 thing we are here for, is to serve the public. 



There are other men here who in times past have engaged in 

 this common scramble. I think they would all say that they think it 

 was a good thing — that in connection with and for its bearings on 

 their present work they value the experience. Not many besides 

 myself, however, have had prolonged experience in the lumber in- 

 dustry, and because our own business touches that at so many points, 

 and because its representatives and we deal with the same elements 

 and interests, I have thougbt some discussion of that and its relation 

 to the things in which we are peculiarly interested, based on my 

 own experience and the insight so derived, might be more serviceable 

 than a technical paper. 



The first point I will take up is the democracy of the industry. 

 It may be that I shall idealize here, for it is true that my own 

 experience has hardly been representative. That was in New England 



'Delivered before the Society, February 10, 1916. 



271 



