1889.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 69 



3. A careful management, yielding full results only after a 

 term of years has expired, exceeding by far the lifetime allotted 

 to men. 



While in the countries of the Old World the holding of large 

 estates by governments, communities, churches, corporations, 

 and even by private persons, is not only permitted but, with 

 regard to forest-culture, often fostered, as there are many areas 

 which are unfit for agriculture and yet can be made profit- 

 able by growing forest-trees thereon, the ideas underlying our 

 land-system go in the opposite direction. We are opposed, on 

 principle, to the extensive holding of lands, not only by federal 

 and State governments, but even by private persons, if they 

 should select lands to provide for the benefit of the issue in their 

 families beyond the second generation. 



The urgent necessity of preserving forests for general econo- 

 mic reasons has, however, already made a mighty inroad into this 

 public sentiment; for from all sides Congress is pressed to with- 

 draw from the market the sale of the federal woodlands, amount- 

 ing to about seventy millions of acres ; and several States, fore- 

 most among them our own Empire State, have set apart 

 suitable lands and constituted forest preserves. 



There are many other difficulties in the way of changing the 

 unsettled condition of our forest policy. They all can be traced 

 back to former superabundance of woods and the wasteful- 

 ness caused thereby. This tendency has remained even after the 

 conditions under whicii it originated have disappeared. It was 

 primarily caused by the ignorance that prevailed as to the im- 

 portance of forestry interests and the management of forests, 

 and was nourished and fostered by the seeming inexhaustibility 

 of our natural wood-supplies. 



All these conditions, however, which have produced the 

 l')resent unsatisfactory state of affairs in this country, and 

 which are very different from those that the European nations 

 had to encounter, are disappearing every year more and more, 

 and are bringing us not only nearer to the corresponding 

 European prospect of wood-famine, but threaten to become 

 even worse, unless the existing apathy in this vital matter shall 

 pass away, and measures be taken to expiate the sins of former 

 generations. 



Other reasons why systematic forestry has not yet taken hold 

 of this country, are found in the very nature of this branch of 

 the economy of a nation. We have seen before, that forestry 

 proper involves large continuous tracts of land. But liow siiall 

 our average farmer, possessing from one hundred to two hun- 

 dred acres, succeed in profiting by systematic forestry, even 

 if he were inclined to help in the general effort for improve- 



