FOREST PEESEEVATION" GRAVES. 441 



of securing reproduction is one of the recognized methods employed 

 by foresters. Like slash burning and the use of a diameter limit, it is 

 not a method which can give good results if applied under any blind 

 and rigid rule. Much judgment must be used in modifying the rule 

 to fit specific conditions if the results intended are to follow. 



In California a law was proposed last winter which would have 

 required the leaving of at least one seed tree on every acre of forest 

 land cut over. So far as the writer knows, this is the only case 

 hitherto in which a law has been introduced in any State requiring 

 that seed trees shall be left, except as such trees are provided under 

 a diameter limit. 



There are several factors, most of them of a temporary nature, 

 which at present work against the adoption of better lumbering 

 methods. For several years there has been a growing uneasiness 

 among lumbermen because of the evidently increasing criticisms and 

 public disapproval to which their industry has been exposed. Lum- 

 bermen feel that they have been subjected to criticism which is un- 

 just. They consider they are in danger of being ground between the 

 upper and nether millstones. They confront a business condition. 

 At present stumpage prices, cost of manufacture, and market prices 

 for their product, their profits are not large. The public chafes at 

 the present cost of the lumber which it consumes. To the average 

 lumberman the difficulties in the way of the practice of forestr3\ in 

 the light of present conditions in the lumber industry, loom so large 

 that he regards it as impracticable. 



For these conditions, however, the industry itself is largely respon- 

 sible. The question of profit or loss to the lumberman frequently 

 turns on the price at which stumpage is figured on the balance sheet. 

 Stumpage prices have, as is well known, advanced rapidly during 

 recent years. As the available surplus virgin timber dwindled, far- 

 sighted lumbermen rushed to get as much as possible into their hands 

 in anticipation of the time when they could sell with a large profit. 

 But prices which mills can get for their product have not moved 

 in proportion to stumpage prices. The reason for this is twofold: 

 The number of sawmills operating in the United States has increased 

 greatly, and the sawing capacity of many old mills has been enlarged, 

 so that to-day the capacity for lumber production is far greater than 

 formerly. Mill owners can not afford to let their property stand idle, 

 and, in consequence, lumber is put upon the market in excess of the 

 actual demand. The second factor which tends to keep down the 

 price of lumber is the inroads made by many substitutes for wood 

 put upon the market in recent years. These inroads in some branches 

 of the lumber industry are serious and have tended to restrict the 

 demand. To the extent that lumbermen have created fixed charges 

 against themselves by buying and holding large amounts of timber. 



