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equilibrium. The effort of the states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to 

 establish a plan for their forest lands, consistent with the larger needs of 

 the nation is a timely one. It is appropriate that search be made for the 

 basic principles which must underlie such plan if it is to have promise of 

 permanence. For pride or sentiment or opinion should not, and in the 

 long run, will not prevail against fact, or against the fundamental economic 

 laws upon which industry and commerce have been built, the world over. 

 Abundance and variety of natural resources have constituted, perhaps, 

 this nation's strongest claim to industrial and commercial prosperity. 

 Waste is national folly. Conservation is a guarantee of national life. 



About half a century ago the congress of the United States became 

 much exercised over the alarming prospect for the nation's timber supply . 

 which was then said to exist, a prospect which would within forty years, 

 it was stated, leave the United States bare of its great forests. For some 

 years thereafter senators and congressmen endeavored to save the forests 

 by making speeches about conservation. Then a Division of Forestry was 

 operated to find out what was becoming of the trees. Today its powerful 

 successor, the United States Forest Service, is itself the administrator of 

 more timber in the national forests than congressmen fifty years ago 

 thought there was at that time in the whole of the United States. But 

 the spectre of the "timber famine" still stalks. 



Essentials of a State Forest Policy. The forests, in addition to provid- 

 ing raw material for the manufacture of lumber and other commodities 

 of almost universal use, have a more or less remote relation (a) to the 

 control of water flow; (b) to soil fertility; (c) to the pleasure and recrea- 

 tion of the people; and even, it is often asserted, (d) to climatic conditions 

 and the public health. The chief concern of forest conservation is, however, 

 the adequate future supply of those useful commodities which are secured 

 through the industrial uses of the standing timber, especially through man- 

 ufacture into lumber. A determination of the economic position which 

 state forests occupy in a consistent plan for the forests of the nation 

 as a whole, would involve the answer in the light of all the complex condi- 

 tions in American industrial life, to the following four questions : 

 First, how much standing timber is needed in the United States? 

 Second, what species of timber should be replaced and perpetuated in 

 the forests of this country? 



Third, how, geographically, should these forests be distributed? 

 Fourth, who should grow and own the forests? 



Quantity, quality, location and ownership! These are the essential, 

 questions which confront Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and indeed all other 

 states, in their effort adequately to meet the needs of their people for the 

 products of the forest. 



How Much T'lmber Is Needed? The permanent needs for standing tim- 

 ber cannot of course be ascertained with mathematical precision. The 

 future is inscrutable. The public requirement for lumber and for other 

 forest products cannot be determined separate from the supply of other 

 materials having substantially similar uses. An accurate determination 

 of probable future forest needs would require a nation-wide survey of the 

 whole arena of industry and of the supply of all the materials which may 



