LAISSEZ FAIRE VS. FORESIGHT IN FOREST MANAGE- 

 MENT^ 



By Burt P. Kirki^and 

 Professor of Forestry, University of Washington 



The services rendered to the cause of forestry by Mr. Gary and 

 his well-known sincerity make one regret to disagree with him at 

 any point. However, the writer believes that Gary goes too far in 

 support of the hisses faire policy in industry — to a length, in fact, 

 which recent national and international events have definitely demon- 

 strated to be inexpedient to say the least. Moreover, Americans are 

 already too prone to take the fatalistic attitude found in parts of Gary's 

 article — that everything will come out all right anyway: "we should 

 worry." Little attention will be paid to the attempt — disavowed near 

 the end of the article — to read the trained forester out of the lumber 

 industry and in fact out of any useful position in our national life. 

 If the trained forester had no place in the lumber industry he would 

 never have become so firmly established as he is. The introduction of 

 the trained forester into the business depends on his being able to give 

 service in it. 



Many forest schools have for several years proceeded on the theory 

 that the lumber industry is included within the scope of forestry. With 

 that idea in mind attention has been given to instruction in logging 

 engineering, forest products, and the lumber business in general, and it 

 is held that forest finance includes the finance of exploitation forests and 

 their organization, the organization of exploitation forests. The schools 

 do not find these combinations inharmonious, but quite the contrary. 

 In forest finance, for example, while it is true that the handling of 

 forest lands for continuous production introduces different elements 

 into the problem from those encountered in the exploitation forest, 

 nevertheless the former throws extremely valuable light on the latter. 

 Indeed, if principles applicable to finance of production forests had 

 been known and followed by more investors in forest lands, many of 

 them would have been far better ofif today. 



Looking at the question from the standpoint of the lumber busi- 

 ness, it is proper to inquire whether the inclusion in the lumben-nan's 



> A Reply to Austin Gary's paper: How Lumbermen in Following Their Own 

 Interests Have Served the Public. 



290 



