234 FORESTS AND MANKIND 



future cut. It is this sort o thing that helps bring forestry out 

 of the realm of mere academic interest for the lumberman 

 and place it among practical business enterprise. 



Many large lumber companies are employing technically 

 trained foresters. These men are conducting planting opera- 

 tions, making studies of growth and forest renewal and some- 

 times taking charge of the timber cutting. They are making 

 estimates of the timber and helping formulate policies for 

 more conservative cutting. They are even laying plans for 

 perpetual yields where the tracts of the company are large 

 enough to make it possible. This combination of forester and 

 lumberman is doubly helpful and on it will probably be based 

 the bulk of forestry's future progress. 



Lumber companies are not alone in finding the practice of 

 forestry a necessary thing for the continuation of their business. 

 Water companies for a number of years have been planting 

 trees about the headwaters of their stream sources and have 

 adopted forestry as a sideline. Their thought in creating and 

 maintaining a cover of forest trees about reservoirs and streams 

 is to preserve the clarity of their water and keep the reservoirs 

 from silting after heavy downpours. These companies, too, 

 are employing foresters who, through the sale of forest products 

 from these lands are more than paying for the expense of 

 forestry. 



Coal companies, railroads, and other users of large quantities 

 of wood in one form, or another, are finding it increasingly 

 profitable to raise their own forest products. Paper pulp com- 

 panies are employing foresters in an effort to grow more wood 

 and to enable them to remain in business without the neces- 

 sity of importing their raw material over long distances. 



