A Dj'x'kxm.m, l{i;i()Hi) 



culture of the forest-starved regions of Europe leaves, in the minds 

 of those who have had opj^ortunities to make comparisons, no doubt 

 that there is a point below \\hich forests can not safely )je reduced. 

 Europe itself recognized that fact several centuries ago, but America, 

 with its boundless forests, once thought inexhaustible, is just begin- 

 ning fully to awaken to the cause of forest conservation espoused in 

 this country a few decades ago by a small group of far-seeing men. 

 The present Forest Service, a bureau of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, is the outgro\\i;h of the study, thought and efforts 

 of these men. 



Their purposes, however, M-ere much opposed and misiinderstond 

 from the start. A common misconception was that they ^^'oposed to 

 lock up the forests against use; whereas M'hat they sought was to re- 

 place heedless and wasteful exploitation by rational management of 

 the forests and by rational utilization of their products. They spoke 

 from the experience of older countries and urged the application of 

 knowledge then available as well as the acquirement of an additional 

 knowledge needed to ])ut our forest lands and our wood crops to their 

 highest use in perpetuity. They stressed the forest management that 

 they had learned from Europe, but they did not fail to recognize that 

 a knowledge of the properties of our many different woods is funda- 

 mental to the economical utilization and conservation of our forest 

 resources. 



In the report of the Division of Forestry for the year 1887. E. E. 

 Fernow. Chief of the Division, t\'rote: 



"The properties upon wliicli tlie use of wood, its technology, is 

 based, should be well known to tlie forest manager if he wishes to 

 produce a crop of given quality useful for definite purposes. Our 

 ignorance in this direction has been most fruitful in fostering a 

 wastefid use of our natm-al forests, and the same ignorance mis- 

 leads even the forest planter of today in choosing the timber he 

 plants and the locality to which he adapts it. How the Elack 

 Walnut has been sacrificed for fence material, how tlie valuable 

 Chestnut Oak has rotted in the forest unused, how the Hemlock 

 has been despised and passed by M'hen it might have been suc- 

 cessfully used to lengthen the duration of White Pine supplies, 

 how timbers are now used in unnecessarily large sizes and applied 



