LAISSEZ FAIRE VS. FORESIGHT IN FOREST MANAGEMENT 291 



training of some knowledge of forest production should be useful. 

 Frank Vanderlip, of the National City Bank, and many other equally 

 successful business men are now sponsors for the idea that the business 

 man needs a broad training, including all branches of business — not 

 merely the one in which he is engaged. If this is true, then the propo- 

 sition that the silviculturist needs to know something of utilization 

 (the lumber business) and that the lumberman needs to know some- 

 thing of forest production can certainly be easily substantiated. As 

 Gary has recognized, the lumber industry is now entering into world 

 competition ; the big broad-gauge lumberman will, therefore, want and 

 need to know what he has to compete with in the way of timber pro- 

 duced under the hand of man both in this country and abroad. For 

 example, should there arise in the lumber industry far-seeing organiza- 

 tions like the United States Steel Corporation, which assures its sup- 

 plies of raw material 50 to 100 years ahead, would it not be extremely 

 useful to the manager of such a concern to know that supplies of timber 

 to be used 50 years hence can be grown at a fraction of the expense 

 they can be provided by storing up stumpage acquired now at $3 or 

 more per M feet ? 



Cary's article is in a large measure a challenge to the whole 

 system of training for forest industry. Since the modern verdict is 

 overwhelmingly in favor of such training in other lines of endeavor, 

 from agriculture to law and medicine and even business itself, not 

 much space need be taken to discuss this question. The writer will 

 content himself with pointing out that men in their industrial activities 

 may be classified into three classes : first, those who can profit neither by 

 their own first hand experience nor by the experience of others ; second, 

 those who can profit by their own experience but not that of others ; 

 and third, those wdio can profit both by their own and by the experience 

 of others. Not every man who takes the forester's training can qualify 

 for this last and highest class of ability, but it must be the function of 

 the trained forester to bring world experience to bear on the problems 

 of both forest production and forest utilization in America. It is the 

 business of the forester to foresee as far as possible the future evolution 

 of forest industrv in this country and help prepare the industry for 

 the changes that are coming. The forester should be in a position 

 to do this because he knows world experience, especially that of na- 

 tions that have already passed through industrial stages we have not 

 entered. No American forester that I know of ever advocated grafting 



