8 FORESTS AND MANKIND 



gift to man. The products of their growth give him timber 

 and firewood, paper, turpentine and rosin, tannin and maple 

 sugar, fruits and nuts. By their seeds trees provide forever 

 renewable crops of all those forest products that have become 

 such intimate parts of our existence. 



Not always has man thought of trees as crops. Yet they are 

 crops just as corn or wheat. When the time comes that the 

 trees of a forest have reached full growth and have borne seed, 

 they are mature and ready to be harvested. If they are not 

 used, the day will come when some storm brings them crashing 

 to the ground weak with disease and decay, a prey to insects 

 and fungus. They will rot and all the energy of the sunlight, 

 all the years of patient growth have been wasted. It is far 

 better then that these ripe full-grown trees be used and that the 

 ground they occupied be filled again with young and grow- 

 ing trees. And although some trees, such as orchard or shade 

 trees serve man best by living on undisturbed, the great army 

 of trees, the soldiers of the forests best fulfill their fate and pur- 

 pose when they are harvested by man just as a field of corn 

 or wheat is harvested. It is the forester's problem to harvest 

 wisely and understandingly so that forest may succeed forest 

 of ever increasing usefulness and value. 



