THERE is a popular notion in the minds of many people 

 that the forest is one of the great natural resources 

 which is profitable only in using and that forestry con- 

 sists in protecting from fire and cutting the trees into lum- 

 ber. Up to the present this has been about the only kind of 

 forestry practiced in the United States. It is, however, no 

 more forestry than mowing and using the wild prairie grass 

 is agriculture. Forestry is the propagation of tree crops for 

 wood, either through natural reproduction or by planting. It 

 takes from thirty to one hundred years to grow saw timber 

 from seed. An increase in diameter of one inch in five to ten 

 years, according to the species and conditions, is the aver- 

 age growth increment. 



Use Three Times Our Production. 



Under natural forest conditions this means on the average 

 for all kinds of wood in the United States about twelve cubic 

 feet per acre per annum. We are now cutting forty-two cubic 

 feet per acre. We use therefore more than three times our 

 production. Our present per capita use of wood is about 260 

 cubic feet. The per capita use is increasing all over the world. 

 The price of lumber is increasing rapidly and in the better 

 woods it has now reached a point where it is profitable to 

 practice scientific forestry somewhat as they do in European 

 countries. While we produce on an average twelve cubic feet 

 per acre per annum, Germany averages thirty-eight, Saxony 

 ninety-three, Switzerland fifty, and France forty. In many of 

 the oldest and richest sections of South Germany it has be- 

 come more profitable to grow forest crops than the ordinary 

 agricultural crops on land in every way well suited to agri- 

 culture. 



