286 The Farm Woodlot 



waste on the lumbermen, who were really responsible to 

 only a very small degree. The people demanded cheap 

 lumber and refused everything but the very best quality. 

 Such lumber as they demanded then can hardly be bought 

 now at any price. The lumbermen had either to furnish 

 what was wanted or go out of business. The result was, 

 as we have shown, a criminal waste, but the people were 

 responsible, and the lumbermen were only the agents, 

 practically forced to act as they did. Under these condi- 

 tions, it was only human nature that the lumbermen should 

 resent being called robbers and vandals. Thus it was that 

 they were turned against the movement when their support 

 and cooperation was what was most needed to give it 

 stamina. 



As in almost every new movement, the first supporters 

 to rally to the cause were sentimentalists, travelers who 

 had visited Europe and been caught by the glamour of the 

 beautiful orderly forests and the universal respect and 

 reverence for trees. It was the sentiment of the thing 

 that attracted them, not the usefulness. Naturally they 

 wanted to see this order of things introduced into their own 

 country. They knew nothing of the conditions here nor 

 of the fitness of their schemes, but they insisted vigorously 

 and vociferously on their adoption. This persistent clam- 

 oring, with the great truths back of it, gained them many 

 followers. The strength of the movement forced legisla- 

 tion and some general laws were passed, directed toward 

 the conservation of forests. Little more than this could 

 be done because those back of the movement did not know 

 definitely what they wanted to do nor how to do it. The 

 timber interests that really could have accomplished some- 



