306 Forestry Quarterly. 



cusses some phase of the subject which through President Roose- 

 velt's insistence has assumed a more than national importance. 

 These utterances are timely, and important mainly in that they are 

 made by entirely sane, and competent, unbiased and disinterested 

 men in an attitude neither of controversy nor of wild popular en- 

 thusiasm or unbalanced sentiment, which has characterized dis- 

 cussion elsewhere, but in a cautionary attitude such as an engineer, 

 who deals with precise data would naturally take ; as one of them 

 says : 



"Let us have less rhetoric and more precise engineering investigation in 

 estimating the extent and value of these great resources." 



In reviewing this pamphlet we cannot do better than bodily 

 quote the passages which have more particularly to do with our 

 and cognate subjects, forests and waters, and we quote in extenso, 

 because the utterances are not entirely orthodox and of the tenor 

 in which we have been accustomed to hear the subject discussed. 



In his introductory address, Dr. James Douglas shows himself 

 in the somewhat ignorant or hazy condition of mind in which a 

 large majority of our citizens is found who have not yet learned 

 that forestry applied to culled areas means expenditure which re- 

 turns profits only in the long run. He says : 



"I have not very clear ideas with regard to forestry, nor do I think 

 that most of the people who preach upon the subject could carry their 

 precepts into practice if called upon to do so. Considering that our 

 forests have all been largely stripped of their best trees, we have not 

 seen any feasible scheme proposed by which scientific forestry on a large 

 and profitable scale can be applied to the recovery of what remains uncut." 



Mr. John R. Freeman devotes his time to a discussion 



"On certain misapplications of forest influence on stream flow and 

 one or two other features of the conservation movement that have been 

 urged with more attention to making an impression than to scientific 

 truth." 



We quote his remarks approvingly at length : 



"It has been broadly stated that the cutting off of the forests in our 

 Eastern mountains has increased the floods, intensified the droughts and 

 greatly injured the water power of our rivers. I challenge those who so 

 loudly make these statements to produce proof ! 



"The broad truth that forest cover in the mountains is beneficial for 

 conserving and regulating stream flow and preventing soil erosion, is too 

 firmly established to be shaken, and the work of reforesting and fire guard- 

 ing should be pushed with tenfold the present vigor, but nevertheless, let us 

 as engineers caution some of our good friends to be more careful in their 

 applications of this doctrine. 



