A LUMBERMAN'S VIEW OF THE FORESTRY SITUATION. 249 



of corn can be planted or where potatoes can be planted is some- 

 thing'to be rid of. I will admit that. But there is a large tract of 

 country covered by trees that if those trees are removed is absolutely 

 useless for any other purpose, and it is those trees that we lumber- 

 men to a great extent have been removing. Aside from what the 

 benefit derived from those trees has been to the people, enabling 

 them to build their houses, and build them in a manner they could 

 not otherwise have built them, all this territory has been a marked 

 contribution to the civilization of the United States. If we were 

 to consider for a minute what would be the result if we had to de- 

 pend, especially on the prairies of this western country, upon the 

 use of stone, brick or even hardwood in the construction of build- 

 ings, we could at once see the immense benefit the easily worked and 

 tributary white pine is to the country in the western states, saying 

 nothing of the eastern or middle states — yet there is a tendency to 

 charge the lumbermen with some blame. There are some epithets 

 thrown at them, they are charged with reckless destruction, unthink- 

 ing greed, but as far as lumbermen themselves are concerned they 

 have been simply middlemen, in one sense servants of the people 

 who have demanded this destruction. Instead of saying unthinking 

 greed, if there has been an unecessary destruction of pine trees, I 

 would say it was the unthinking demand for lumber that caused the 

 imusual destruction. The forests have been stripped for the benefit 

 of this generation and to the detriment of future generations, but 

 this work has been done unthinkingly, it has been done at the de- 

 mand of you horticulturists, you farmers and dwellers in the towns 

 and cities of the country, who have demanded as far as you could 

 obtain it a cheap building material, and the lumbermen are no more 

 to be blamed for this work than the axe in their hands could be 

 blamed. 



Still, laying the question of the past aside, it is my belief as a 

 lumberman and a member of this forestry association that some- 

 thing more should be looked into than the wants of the present 

 generation in the matter of forestry. We could strip the forests off 

 of the northern part of Minnesota, and the effect would probably 

 not be felt in this generation. We would notice, perhaps, that our 

 lakes were getting lower, our streams were drying up, there might 

 be some increase of epidemics, some unsanitary conditions we would 

 notice, but the great blow would fall to future generations. It is 

 for that reason that I think the time has come when not only lum- 

 bermen but all good citizens should give greater attention to the 

 forest question, and from a personal lumberman's view of the situ- 

 ation I present it as it is now. 



