Conservation of Natural Resources in California. 



principles of forestry. They are rich in forest experience. The lessons 

 of forestry were brought home to them by hard knocks. Their forest 

 systems were built up gradually as the result of hardship. They did 

 not first spin fine theories and then apply those theories by main force. 

 On the contrary, they began by facing disagreeable facts. Every step 

 of the way toward wise forest use, the world over, has been made at the 

 sharp spur of want, suffering, or loss. As a result, the science of 

 forestry is one of the most practical and most directly useful of all 



Planting crew at work in Sierra National Forest. The men are planting sugar pine 

 seeds with hoes on an area that has been repeatedly burned for fifteen years. 



the sciences. It is a serious work, undertaken as a measure of relief, 

 and continued as a safeguard against future calamity. 



Roughly, those countries which to-day manage their forests on sound 

 principles have passed through four stages of forest experience. At 

 first the forests were so abundant as to be in the way, and so they 

 were either neglected or destroyed. Next, as settlements grew and the 

 borders of the forest receded farther and farther from the places where 

 wood was needed and used, the question of local wood supplies had to 

 be faced, and the forest was spared or even protected. Third, the 

 increasing need of wood, together with better knowledge of the forest 

 and its growth, led to the recognition of the forest as a crop, like agri- 



