FORESTRY QUARTERLY 



Vol. XL] September, 1913. [No. 3. 



A PLAN ADEQUATE TO MEET OUR NEEDS FOR 



WOOD AND TIMBER.* »■ r 



By B. E. Fernow. 



The title which Mr. Ayers has chosen for me to discuss is much 

 more ambitious than my remarks will warrant, for I have no 

 special plan to propose or to advocate, and shall not try to do 

 more than to throw out reflections and suggestions on the subject 

 and point out the need of an active campaign in a particular 

 direction. 



Mr. Ayers not only furnished the title, but also suggested the 

 subject matter on which I was to talk, namely, on the lack and 

 the need of application of the most important branch of forestry 

 — silviculture, and more particularly on the lack and need of 

 planting operations on a large scale. 



There is now probably nobody inside or outside the forestry 

 associations who has not grasped the fundamental idea and object 

 of forestry to be to reproduce the forest crop which we have 

 utilized, and, if possible, in better form; Forest production, or 

 technically speaking, silviculture, is the keynote of forestry. 



There was a time when this truth was not recognized even 

 in the membership of the forestry associations, and, indeed, we 

 are still suffering from the consequences of the delusions of our 

 friends as to what forestry intends. There is still in the constitu- 

 tion of the State of New York that foolish clause which pre- 

 vents the State from practicing silviculture on its own lands — 

 except by violating that fundamental law. 



Practically, when we look over the whole United States, out 

 side the National Forests there is in comparison with the ex- 



*An address delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for the 

 Protection of New Hampshire Forests, Lake Sunapee, N. H., July 2^. 



