A Plan Adequate To Meet Our Needs 



For Timber. 



Synopsis of an Address by Dr. B. E. Fernow at the Annual Meeting of the Society 

 for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. 



Dr. Fernow began by stating that there 

 was probably now nobody who had not 

 grasped the idea that the fundamental ob- 

 ject of forestry was to reproduce the for- 

 est crop which we had used, and, if pos- 

 sible, in better form. Looking over the 

 United States there was little attempt at 

 reproduction. The population was still 

 growing, and while a reduction in con- 

 sumption, from the present 250 cubic feet 

 per capita per year to something like the 

 consumption of European countries, was 

 inevitable this change would not be made 

 readily. 



Dr. Fernow then quoted from the report 

 of the National Conservation Commission 

 to the effect that the cut was more than 

 twice the annual growth and that there 

 was then (1907) hardly thirty years sup- 

 ply in sight, so there was no time for dilly 

 dallying. 



He urged that fire protection and con- 

 servative logging would not meet the need 

 as these were concerned with the utiliz- 

 ation of the existing crop but did nothing 

 to insure a new crop. 



It was true that fire protection was 

 essential to forestry as no one would in- 

 vest money with a high fire hazard but 

 fire protection had been so much improv- 

 ed of late years that the time was more 

 propitious for pressing for reforestation. 



Holding that, in spite of substitutes, 

 timber would continue to be used and 

 would continue to increase in price, and 

 also that the natural regeneration method 

 of timber reproduction would be found 

 nearly as costly and far less effective than 

 replanting he wished to go on record as 

 holding the opinion that 'our future needs 

 can not be satisfactorily and adequately 

 provided for until we take recourse to 

 planting operations on a large scale..' 



Within twenty years the United States 

 would have reached the point where vir- 

 gin timber in which natural regeneration 

 might still be practiced would be near its 

 end. The country's needs must then be 

 supplied chiefly from the so-called second 

 growth and volunteer growth; and the 

 area capable of restocking only by arti- 

 ficial means would have increased prob- 

 ably to 250,000,000 acres, over half the 

 remaining forest soil. (Dr. Fernow estim- 

 ated that in 1907 the forest area of the 

 United States was 580 million acres). Then 

 the people would be forced to plant 

 whether they believed in that method or 

 not. 



It was useless to expect private enter- 

 prise to undertake this task owing to the 

 long time element involved. The railways, 

 needing a constant supply of ties, and 

 paper companies, whose big plants were 

 built with the idea of continuous forest 

 supplies, might embark in tree planting, 

 but Dr. Fernow was afraid that for the 

 rest they would have to abandon the idea 

 of individual endeavor and learn that 

 community interests must be attended to 

 by the community. In the end only the 

 state and the municipality could be ex- 

 pected to provide for a distant future. 

 There were foolish notions abroad as to 

 the distance of that future and how long 

 it took to grow a log tree. With most 

 species in most localities nothing could be 

 expected in less than 60 to 100 years. 



He had no cut and dried plan for this 

 except to set every state forester, state 

 commission and forestry association think- 

 ing, to make them realize that their busi- 

 ness was not only to conserve existing re- 

 sources but to create new ones, and to 

 recognize that this was a more serious 

 matter than could be met by the distri- 

 bution of a few thousand trees to private 

 planters; that it required systematic pro- 

 cedure on a large scale. 



Each state forester should make a can- 

 vass of his state to ascertain what lands 

 could be left to private planting and what 

 to municipal or state enterprise. He 



should work out a plan of state co-opera- 

 tion which might take the form in the case 

 of municipalities, besides furnishing plant 

 material and advice, of pledging the 

 state's superior credit for raising the 

 necessary funds by bond issues for acquir- 

 ing and reforesting waste lands and in re- 

 turn securing supervisory power for the 

 state. For New England municipal action 

 was perhaps t^ie most promising although 

 in general direct state control might be 

 preferable. 



Dr. Fernow gave the following example 

 to illustrate the method of procedure. 



* Let us assume that a town has bought 

 5,000 acres of waste lands, which it could 

 secure for say $15,000, borrowing the 

 money from the state at 'i%; the 5,000 

 acres to be planted in a 25 year campaign; 

 that is at the rate of 200 acres per year, 

 at a cost of $8 per acre; the annual outlay 

 of $1,600 to be furnished by the state from 

 year to year, when the interest charges 

 will be $450 on the original investment 

 and a series of interest payments of $48, 



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