78 An American Forest Administration. 



restrict expansive and favor intensive management 

 of resources. 



As is natural under such conditions, individualism 

 has developed itself in proportion to opportunities 

 for its expansion individual interests and rights are 

 considered foremost, while, with a more or less 

 unstable population, communal interests are but im- 

 perfectly recognized and considered, and communal 

 spirit hardly awakened because less necessary. 



It is relative density of population, then, which 

 accounts largely for the many differences, social and 

 economical, between the Old and New Worlds, and 

 most certainly for the difference in the use of all 

 resources, the forest resource included. 



Private interest in natural resources is concen- 

 trated upon present gain, and where this gain can be 

 secured by utilizing only the best of the natural 

 growth, then abandoning the old and opening up a 

 new field, the incentive to management of the re- 

 source for continuity is absent. 



We may then say that in the United States the 

 absence of forest management from considerations 

 of private interest is due to the fact that there is still 

 a large area of virgin timber left, which can be 

 worked advantageously for present gain by simply 

 utilizing the best natural growth without the neces- 

 sity of economical management. 



That this state of affairs may change in a few 

 decades is no consideration for the present workers 

 of the resource. Their interest lies only in the imme- 

 diate present, while forest management means cur- 

 tailment of present revenue for the sake of continued 

 future returns or benefits. 



