246 FORESTS AND MANKIND 



calamity. In some foreign countries the need for fuel wood 

 drives thousands of city dwellers into the woods to pick up 

 twigs, branches, and pine cones and carry them home. 



As wood becomes scarcer it is inevitable that prices must 

 further advance until we reach the day when the products 

 from man-planted forests begin to stabilize the price of wood. 

 One thing is certain. The day of cheap wild timber is forever 

 behind us. Wood will never be so cheap, nor so plentifully used, 

 as in the past. Future prices and future supply will depend on 

 the cooperation of wood users, the wood manufacturer, and 

 the wood producer. It will depend on the cooperation of State 

 Government, Federal Government, and private industries. To- 

 day cooperation seems the key to open up the future of forestry 

 in this country. Legislation has broadened the cooperative scope 

 of the Federal Government so that now it can work with the 

 State and with the private owner in forest fire protection. Co- 

 operative legislation makes it possible for seeds and tree plants 

 to be distributed to farmers for windbreaks and plantations. It 

 is this spirit of mutual helpfulness, of attacking the problem 

 from all sides and in the interest of all that seems to offer the 

 greatest possibilities for the forestry of tomorrow. 



The way out of our dilemma then lies in securing fire 

 protection, wiser methods of taxation, more public forests, 

 proper care in lumbering, and research into better methods of 

 wood growing and wood using. Ultimately it lies in growing 

 timber on every acre of available forest soil. That will not be 

 a bit too much. Even with all our forest acres growing trees, 

 we shall have an annual wood crop of possibly twenty-seven 

 billion cubic feet and that is only very little more than we use 

 today. 



