PREFACE 



The American people are by inheritance a nation of 

 forest butchers. 



Possessing a continent originally endowed with superb 

 forests, unequalled in any part of the globe, the three 

 hundred years which have passed since the Colonists 

 landed upon the Atlantic Coast have seen the area of 

 our forests diminished by 300,000,000 acres, while the 

 contents have been reduced to less than half. 



To the early settlers, the forest was a continuous 

 menace. Its growth covered the land needed for the 

 maize fields; Indians and wild beasts of equal ferocity 

 were harbored in its depths, and it is not surprising that 

 our forefathers cleared off the forests ruthlessly, espe- 

 cially since they believed their supply of timber endless. 



The wide-awake American citizen of today knows 

 otherwise. He has seen game like the buffalo and the car- 

 rier pigeon, considered inexhaustible, vanish before the 

 relentless pursuit of the American hunter. He has seen 

 the splendid stores of coal, iron, and gas enormously re- 

 duced within practically a single generation. He knows, 

 if he stops to think about it, that any natural resource can 

 be used up, and that the end of the virgin forests is al- 

 ready in sight. The trouble is that many do not stop to 

 think. 



"We have so long heard of the richness of our conti- 

 nent, and the variety of our resources that we have con- 

 sidered talk of economy beneath us. However, it is 

 high time that patriotic citizens consider the question 



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