Canadian Forestry Journal, October, 1919 



401 



fully developed could, at a conservative esti- 

 mate, support a permanent population of 

 300,000 families, allowing each family $800 a 

 year in wages, or about 1 ,200,000 persons in 

 all. 



The management of forest resources on a 

 permanent basis is even less of an experiment 

 than rural development with government aid. 

 In Europe sustained production of the forest 

 forms the backbone of an economic system of 

 small holdings, especially when dealing with 

 poor agricultural land. In Switzerland a forest 

 of 10,000 acres with an adjoining area of 3,000 

 acres of agricultural land supports a prosperous 

 permanent community of 1 ,500 people. About 

 81 per cent of all the workmen employed in the 

 woods and mills in Europe are small holders of 

 land within or adjacent to the forest. The par- 

 ishes of La Teste and Caseaux in the southwest- 

 ern part of France in the Landes, which have 

 been reforested for the last sixty years, con- 

 tained before reforestation a population of 

 1 ,600 people. Since the forests were estab- 

 lished these parishes support a population of 

 14.000. 



There are now about 12.000 lumberjacks 

 composing the tenth and twentieth Forest Regi- 

 ments. There must be also a large number of 

 lumbermen in the general draft furnished by 

 the lumber mdustry. These men, when they re- 

 turn to civil life, will naturally look for work 



in the woods and, having learned in France the 

 benefits derived from the stability of the forest 

 industry, will expect similar practice here. 



The task of organizing our national forests 

 into small units on a strictly continuous yield 

 basis is not as difficult as it may seem and is not 

 beyond the strength of the existing organization 

 in the Forest Service. It does not mean tack- 

 ling the regulation of 100,000,000 acres of 

 forest at once, but organizing here an area and 

 there an area as the ever-widening circles of 

 economic life come into contact with them. 

 Intensive forest surveys are ahead of, rather 

 than behind, present needs. The objection that 

 the national forests do not always control suf- 

 ficiently large units for sustained management 

 should not present an insurmountable obstacle 

 because co-operation of the public and private 

 owners in the management of natural producing 

 units can be secured in most cases on a basis 

 satisfactory to both. The further objection 

 that the lumber industry is overdeveloped and 

 it would be economically unsound for the gov- 

 ernment to undertake the construction of new 

 sawmills is not valid. The overdevelopment of 

 the lumber industry does not prevent the con- 

 stant appearance of new sawmills, often oper- 

 ating in government timber. In many cases 

 government control of private logging opera- 

 tions on the national forests would be all that 

 would be needed, the government merely pro- 



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