498 United States. 



At present writing the continuance of this experi- 

 ment is in doubt. 



With the second decade of the century, we shall 

 enter upon the flood tide of development, when no 

 more need of argument for its necessity, and only the 

 question of practicable methods, will occupy us. 



So far, silviculturally, the selection forest, i.e., cull- 

 ing the best and the stoutest, practiced hitherto by 

 the lumberman, without reference to reproduction, 

 but carried on somewhat more conservatively, is 

 still the method advocated in most cases by the Forest 

 Service. This so-called conservative lumbering is, 

 to be sure, the transition to better methods. Accord- 

 ing to reports of the federal Forest Service in 1907, 

 some million acres of private timberland were under 

 forest management or conservatively lumbered. 



Planting of waste or logged lands, as distinguished 

 from planting in the prairies, which had, sporadically 

 and in a small way, been done by individuals here and 

 there for many years, is practised in ever increasing 

 amount, both by State administrations and by pri- 

 vate owners; the New York State College of Forestry 

 starting such planting in its College Forest on a larger 

 scale and systematically, in 1899. At present writing, 

 the forestry department of the Pennsylvania Rail- 

 road Company is perhaps the largest single planter in 

 the country, having set out over four million trees 

 (by 1910), with the avowed purpose of growing rail- 

 road ties. 



By 1908, popular interest in forest conservation 

 had become so keen, and at the same time paterna- 



