78 FORESTS AND MANKIND 



volume and supply timber, fuel and other products for all 

 time. 



That is the highest ideal of forestry to make timber lands 

 permanently productive. To bring a forest up to its stage of 

 greatest usefulness to man and always keep it there. 



In forestry, perhaps, more than in any other field of human 

 activity it is true that history repeats itself. Almost invariably 

 civilized countries repeat the same steps and make the same 

 blunders in regard to their timber lands. First, a time exists 

 when the forests are everywhere and possess no value. No one 

 owns them. No one cares to own them. Settlers cut and burn to 

 get them out of the way, so that they can plant crops, or pro- 

 duce grass for their herds. It is an era of unrestricted forest 

 devastation. Later, as the forests become scarce and wood is 

 hard to obtain, laws are passed seeking to protect the forest 

 from fire and from unrestricted cutting. Last of all when pro- 

 tection alone is found to be not enough, measures are taken to 

 plant the lands made barren and to cut more carefully the 

 forests that remain. 



Not all nations reach these stages at the same time. 



In some corner of the world today, each act in this drama 

 of forest exhaustion is being played. In parts of the tropics men 

 are still in the first stage where the forests are almost 

 limitless and without value. France, Sweden and Germany 

 have reached the third stage and are practicing scientific for- 

 estry. It is upon this final stage that the United States is slowly 

 entering. 



It is natural that governments rather than individuals should 

 have taken the lead in forestry, since timber crops are long- 

 time crops and require years rather than days to mature. 



