2 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



may, for a while at least, preserve possible sources 

 of profit from mismanagement, usually by mere 

 non-use, much more rarely by conscious manage- 

 ment for continuity. In most cases it will be 

 found that the busy competition of- the present 

 has a destructive tendency and leads to wasteful 

 methods, especially if the resources are large in 

 comparison with the population and its needs. 

 Density of population is the index of the intensity 

 with which resources will be husbanded. Plenty 

 breeds extravagance ; dearth breeds care. 



Thus in the United States, with its enormous 

 resources in fields and forests and mines, which 

 are open to the unrestricted, licentious use of a 

 comparatively small population, the destruction of 

 valuable material in the exploitation of these nat- 

 ural riches, the careless and extravagant use of 

 them, the neglect to which they are abandoned as 

 soon as the cream is taken, are simply characteris- 

 tic of all pioneering populations. With us, more- 

 over, the pioneering stage fell into a period when 

 the invention and development of railroad trans- 

 portation intensified the disproportion of popula- 

 tion and resources, opening up new territory and 

 making virgin supplies available more rapidly than 

 the needs of a resident population required, thus 

 creating destructive competition in the attempts to 

 profit from a non-intensive, rapacious exploitation 

 and exportation. For, in the absence of a resident 

 population to use the less valuable portions of the 



