THE ESSENTIALS OF AMERICAN TIMBER LAW 



PREFACE 



In the newspapers there has recently appeared what pur- 

 ported to be a true account of the experiences of an Indian 

 who, in the autumn of 1915, became separated from his com- 

 panions in the extensive uninhabited region south of Hudson 

 Bay. Surrounded by conditions peculiarly unfavorable to 

 human existence and confronted by dangers that would have 

 overwhelmed a man lacking in courage and initiative, this 

 native American maintained his poise and applied himself 

 to the task of mastering the situation into which a seemingly 

 unkind fate had brought him. 



Not only did this Indian successfully resist the hostile 

 forces that threatened his destruction but, with no mechanical 

 appliance other than a knife, he started a fire, erected a 

 shelter, fashioned traps for fish and' game and supplied him- 

 self with the three essentials of life, food, clothing and a 

 habitation. Before the long sub-arctic winter was over he 

 had gathered a large stock of furs and had constructed a 

 canoe in which to transport his furs to a place where they 

 would have a value a hundred fold greater than in the wilder- 

 ness in which he had collected them. 



The situation of those Americans who began the study 

 of forestry in the early years of the first decade of the 

 twentieth century was not entirely unlike that of the Ca- 



