PREFACE 



WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT AND WHY 



The object of this booklet is to present the elementary 

 principles of forest conservation as they apply on the Pacific 

 coast from Montana to California. 



There is a keen and growing interest in this subject. 

 Citizens of the western states are beginning to realize that 

 the forest is a community resource and that its wasteful 

 destruction injures their welfare. Lumbermen are coming 

 to regard timber land not as a mine to be worked out and 

 abandoned, but as a possible source of perpetual industry. 

 They find little available information, however, as to how 

 these theories can be reduced to actual practice. The "West- 

 ern Forestry and Conservation Association believes it can 

 render no more practical service than by being the first to 

 outline for public use definite workable methods of forest, 

 management applicable to western conditions. 



A publication of this length can give little more than an 

 outline, but attempt has been made either to answer the 

 most obvious questions which suggest themselves to timber 

 OAvners interested in forest preservation or to guide the lat- 

 ter in finding their own answers. Only the most reliable 

 conservative information has been drawn on, much of it 

 having been collected by the Government. 



While the booklet is intended to be of use chiefly- to forest 

 owners, a chapter on the advantage to the community of 

 a proper state forest policy is included, also a chapter on 

 tree growing by farmers. The first presents the economic 

 relation of forest preservation to public welfare, with its 

 problems of fire prevention, taxation and reforestation; for 

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