130 THE SCHOOL BOOK OF FORESTRY 



bering, yet their lumbermen cannot compete with 

 the Americans when it comes to a matter of inge- 

 nuity in the woods. American woods and methods 

 of logging are peculiar. They would no more fit 

 under European forest conditions than would 

 foreign systems be suitable in this country. 

 American lumbermen are slowly coming to devise 

 and follow a combination method which includes 

 all the good points of foreign forestry revised to 

 apply to our conditions. 



We can keep our remaining forests alive and 

 piece out their production over a long period if 

 we practice conservation methods generally 

 throughout the country. Our remaining forests 

 can be lumbered according to the rules of prac- 

 tical forestry without great expense to the 

 owners. In the long run, they will realize much 

 larger returns from handling the woods in this 

 way. This work of saving the forests should be- 

 gin at once. It should be practiced in every 

 state. Our cut-over and idle lands should be 

 put to work. Our forest lands should be handled 

 just like fertile farming lands that produce big 

 crops. The farmer does not attempt to take all 

 the fertility out of the land in the harvest of one 

 bumper crop. He handles the field so that it 



