58 North American Forests and Forestry 



generations of backwoods life would not influence 

 the manner in which the lumber industry was car- 

 ried on. No doubt it would have been well for 

 the American people if the better methods of fell- 

 ing, methods that had a conservative regard for the 

 reproduction and continued existence of the forest, 

 could have been adopted when lumbering on a large 

 scale first began. But such a thing was impossible. 

 It could have been done if the pioneer lumbermen 

 had known what we know now, that the natural 

 supply of lumber would be sufficient for our needs 

 for less than a hundred years. It could have been 

 done, above all, if those pioneers had held the same 

 attitude to the forest which we hold, who live in 

 cities and among well tilled fields. We stand on 

 the outside, and can see many things which they 

 who dwelt within the forest could not see. Re- 

 member that those pioneers were the sons of back- 

 woodsmen who had struggled for life with those 

 very forests we blame them for destroying. 



Let us not quarrel with that sturdy race for the 

 harm they have unintentionally done us, for we owe 

 them too much. Remember that hundreds of 

 cities, from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, and a million 

 rich and smiling farms, are lying on the grounds 

 where our backwoods predecessors counted each 

 tree that succumbed to their axes a victory for 

 civilization. 



Times have changed, and the tasks of this gener- 

 ation are different from those of the last. Their 

 duty was to make room for human life where wild 



