968 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Forest fire protection, furthermore, is pre-eminently a duty of the 

 State and is a duty neither of the local governments nor of the private 

 owner, for fires observe neither property nor township boundary lines. 

 The failure of the towns to afford adequate fire protection in some of 

 the New England States was flagrant, and remained so until the State 

 governments were given effective control as central offices. Fortunately 

 no branch of State forestry work has produced more effective results 

 for the appropriations or has been conducted with greater public spirit 

 than the work of fire protection, and the public ought to feel full con- 

 fidence that appropriations for this purpose will be wisely administered. 



There is still one phase of the problem of State ownership for pur- 

 poses of timber production which should be discussed, namely, the 

 policy to be pursued where private methods of lumbering appear to 

 jeopardize the permanence of forest growth, especially where conserva- 

 tive treatment, even under efficient public ownership and administration, 

 does not promise normal financial returns. The most essential point 

 to be determined is whether these methods will bring about soil de- 

 struction, and will, therefore, render reproduction impossible at any 

 time. Clean cutting in itself is not necessarily an evil. In many 

 regions clean cutting is indeed the method of regeneration adopted by 

 silviculturists. On many types satisfactory reproduction follows clean 

 cutting after the occurrence of one or two seed years — the interval 

 ordinarily allowed in silvicultural operations — and if adequate fire *pro- 

 tection is provided a new generation of growing trees is established. 

 Clean cutting is justified, also, if the land can be used subsequently 

 with greater profit for agriculture or grazing. But if soil destruction 

 is threatened, the State, looking forward to the requirements of in- 

 creasing population, ought to be seriously concerned. This concern is 

 not aesthetic and cannot be measured in dollars and cents, but is rather 

 in the nature of patriotic foresight. 



Where soil destruction is really threatened, the necessary changes in 

 lumbering methods often cannot be effected satisfactorily by State regu- 

 lation or by any scheme short of State ownership. Regulation which 

 involves unexpected and appreciable increases in the cost of logging is 

 likely to cause injustice to the land-owners, and for this reason, if it 

 did not prove to be an actual confiscation of property, and therefore 

 unconstitutional, it would probably be so opposed that enforcement of 

 the law would be difficult and uncertain. Coercive policies cannot sur- 

 vive in a democracy. In Europe it has been found that where radical 

 modifications of lumbering methods are necessary to prevent soil de- 

 struction, as on watersheds, regulation is unsatisfactory and public 

 ownership is necessary. 



