private building to house the same offices. Forest production by the 

 federal government means not only benefits from present expenditure of 

 government funds in the state where they do not interfere with private 

 enterprise, or even with investment by the state (because there is more 

 to be done than both can do), but also that the productive results of these 

 expenditures will mainly accrue to the state in the future because its 

 citizens will receive wages for protecting, growing, and harvesting the 

 timber, and when mature using it at reasonable cost primarily in wood 

 industries, and ultimately in all the other industries of the state. 



The federal government at present, however, has its hands fully 

 occupied in the administration of the considerable areas already set aside 

 for forest production. There is no probability that those areas will at 

 present be extended by purchase of private lands, although a policy of 

 acquisition of alienated lands inside the present boundaries of the Na- 

 tional Forests would be very useful. Aside from the National Forests, 

 irresistible logic leads to the conclusion that for the present nothing will 

 be done to continue cutover lands and land unfit for agriculture, as pro- 

 ducing areas, thus contributing to the industries and general welfare, 

 unless it be done by the state. 



Will a people, granted popular rule, make expenditures, the benefits 

 of which will accrue in the more or less distant future, or will they only 

 make expenditures of the hand-to-mouth sort? Will they use their natural 

 resources with regard only for today, looting and destroying in any way 

 to make today's profit the easiest at whatever expense to the future, or 

 will these resources be conserved? This is undoubtedly the severest test 

 of democracy, if not the supreme test, in the long run. If only today's 

 needs are considered and resources destroyed without measures being 

 taken for replacing the renewable ones, it needs no prophet to see that the 

 power of a given area to support population must continually decrease. 

 Place against this the fact that population normally increases and we 

 cannot escape the conclusion that a continually lower standard of living 

 must follow, together with a lower civilization as its inevitable result. 



The United States, with its great resources and small population, has 

 not felt the results of the enormous waste of its resources as yet. Cer- 

 tain eastern states are beginning to feel them in so far as it concerns 

 their forest resources, and are taking steps, halting and inadequate so far, 

 to provide for the future. It remains to be seen whether Washington will 

 act in time or whether it, too, will wait until the damage done is so great 

 as to render the cost of repair many times greater than it would be if 

 immediate action were taken. It seems certain that a wider knowledge 

 of the need and wonderful possibilities before the state will contribute to 

 the desired end. 



While it is not within the field of this discussion to make extended 

 suggestions as to state policy, one point deserves mention. Referring to 

 Table V, showing costs of production on the poorest quality soil, it may 

 be noted that with private owners the cost of production runs from $14.01 

 to $37.50 per M. feet. As the material produced on this poor quality 

 .soil will be very small sized at 60 years of age and consequently of low 

 value, it is unsafe for any private owner to expect to undertake produc- 

 tion of timber in this soil quality unless in very exceptional cases. The 

 state or federal government may do so with a reasonable expectation 



34 



