WHAT I SAW OF FORESTRY IN EUROPE. 217 
patches are of widely varying ages, some of them nearly large enough to be- 
gin to contribute to the demand for fuel or building. 
I wondered why the people of Switzerland so willingly submit to such 
supervision and control of their own property. I asked: “Do you own these 
lands?” “Yes. All the agricultural lands of Switzerland are owned by the 
men who work them.” There are no landlords there, and all farms are 
small. Then I remarked: “Individuals must own the timbér lands not 
owned by the government, yet they allow government officers to dictate to 
them just what timber to cut from their own lands; it seems to me you are 
submitting to an interference with private rights by the state that we in 
America would not tolerate.” “How so?” was asked, surprised at a sug- 
gestion of that kind. “We would call it a violation of the rights of owner- 
ship to have the state come in and dictate to us where and how we could 
cut our timber,” I.replied. Said they, “We do not look upon it in that way. 
Timber belongs to the state; is under state control, and we are the state. 
Hence we control the timber. Do we not?” 
I confess that conception of the relation of the citizen to the state, so 
different from ours, thrilled me. Here we consider the state something 
outside of and in a sense antagonistic to the individual, and any function of 
the individual surrendered to the state we consider a misfortune, necessary, 
perhaps, but very deplorable. If we had the conception of the relation of 
the individual to the government that obtains in Switzerland, there would 
be no trouble in having a state administration of forestry that would change 
existing conditions for the better to an incalculable degree. If we could feel 
when we put an interest into the hands of the state that it is yet in our hands 
because we are the state, then it would be easy to get an administration of 
forestry that would look to the conservation of forests we now have, and 
that would in time reforest denuded areas. 
We have been absolutely criminal in our treatment of forests. Starting 
on the Atlantic, in those mighty forests of Maine, almost incomparable for 
extent and quality of timber, the work of devastation began, the cruel 
despoliation following the sun to the westward. Everything of the forest 
kind, pine, oak, walnut, all went down before the thoughtless‘ax of the 
woodman, and with never a thought of the importance of having the gent- 
ler planter or conservator heal the awful wounds made by the greed-inspired 
ax and sawmill. Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Michigan, in turn rich 
treasure houses of magnificent timber, and each in turn great centers of lum- 
bering, have now passed out of that realm of usefulness and profit, their for- 
ests gone, mills abandoned or removed. The Saginaw valley, of Michigan, 
only a few years ago the chief lumbering district of the nation, has now 
reached the point where the comparatively few logs it now cuts are brought 
from Canada, and where hitherto busy mill yards are given over to desola- 
tion and decay. 
In Minnesota and Wisconsin notice is already served that in a few years 
more, five or ten at the furthest, the obsequies of dead forests will be cele- 
brated by the removal cr abandonment of saw mills, lumber yards and fac- 
tories. Already great companies and syndicates from the last named states. 
are buying huge areas of timber lands on the Pacific coast, there to repeat, 
amidst our last remaining forest treasures the vandalism of timber devasta- 
tion that has disgraced our age, nation and name, 
Cutting merchantable timber, that which is matured and ready for the 
harvest, is both necessary and right; but over thousands of acres not needed 
