22 PRACTICAL FORESTRY IN 



CRYING NEED FOR DEFINITE STATE POLICY 



To accomplish these reforms will take law-making and law- 

 enforcing. However well we study existing conditions and 

 legislate upon the premises they furnish, success depends 

 upon competent application of the laws and their improve- 

 ment as conditions change. It is a bitter reproof to us of the 

 West that Eastern states, with forest and water resources in- 

 significant compared to ours, have gone so much farther in 

 securing the services of trained men to study these questions 

 and to guard both private and public interests. The very 

 first step should be to get competent trained state foresters 

 who will devise wise measures, protect us from unwise ones, 

 and educate lumbermen and public alike to the common need 

 of action. We pay cheerfully for every other kind of public 

 service, for geologists, veterinarians, insurance commission- 

 ers, barber examiners, and what not. But the two things we 

 must have wood and water we leave pretty much to take 

 care of themselves, and they aren't doing it and never will. 



The essentials of a wise state forest policy, based not on 

 theory but on successful experience elsewhere, are as cheap 

 as they are simple. Where tried they have never been aban- 

 doned. If they pay elsewhere, can we afford not to try? 

 Following is the framework of a code demanded by the situa- 

 tion in every Western state. Some already approach it, but 

 none goes far enough : 



ESSENTIALS OF EFFECTIVE STATE FOREST CODE 



1. A State Board of Forestry selected with the single view 

 of insuring the most competent expert judgment on the mat- 

 ters with which it deals. In other words, the board should 

 not be political, but appointment by the Governor should be 

 restricted to responsible representatives nominated by the in- 

 terests most familiar with forest management, such as state 

 forest schools, lumbermen's associations, forest fire associa- 



