302 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



owners, laborers, and wood users in New England today. The writer 

 zvUl, in fact, go so far as to affirm that from the standpoint of the 

 forest inTcstuicnt the past period zvas a more profitable period for 

 the practice of forestry than the future can be. Why? Because 

 demand and prices for wood have all this time been sufficient in the 

 average locality to give a current return on the investment in forest 

 land and timber which, being acquired at low prices, would have 

 afforded a satisfactory interest yield on the necessary investment. 

 In addition to the current return there has been an enormous appre- 

 ciation in timber, if not in land values, which would have made an 

 additional return on the investment. This appreciation in timber 

 formed, without a doubt, a considerable percentage on the land and 

 timber values which it cannot do hereafter, because the values are 

 now so high that an increase of 25 cents on stumpage value, which in 

 the old days would be several per cent on the investment, will in the 

 future be no more than a fraction of 1 per cent, not of material aid 

 in increasing the total per cent earned by the forest investment. 

 Therefore, the writer concludes that New England would have been 

 far better off if a small portion of the capital it sends away (say a 

 portion of the capital invested in "Boston" mining stocks) had been 

 expended at home. Starting with the forest, as it could have done, 

 the amount of capital required would really have been negligible 

 With this policy more of its sons would have been retained at home 

 and the traditional New England culture better perpetviated than has 

 been the case everywhere. The writer believes that these regional 

 types of American culture, of which New England and the South 

 are examples, constitute an enrichment of the national life not incom- 

 patible with national well-being. But to preserve the racial stock and 

 the type of culture the environment must not be allowed to change 

 too violently. Thus, the old lumberman stock, deprived of its native 

 habitat, "the forest" has of necessity largely perished, as Gary recog- 

 nizes. It has become a rare species as many of the species comprising 

 the fauna and flora of the forest, when the fire-scarred waste succeeds 

 the forest canopy. 



The writer cannot claim Gary's familiarity with New England, 

 but does not hesitate to affirm that more attention to the New England 

 forest in the past would have involved maintaining a larger proportion 

 of the population in forest industry today. Sharing as he does Gary's 

 admiration for the old-time lumberjack, he believes that the woods- 



