42G AMERICAN FORESTRY 



harmonized for the future good of society. Forestry must be practiced in 

 this country or there will soon be no lumber industry worth mentioning, and 

 the ablest lumbermen see this and acknowledge it. It is a repetition of a 

 well-worn illustration to say that the idea in the past of the lumberman has 

 been to turn the forest into money as the miner turns the product of the 

 mine; a plan which worked well in early days of sparse population and 

 great virgin forests. The idea of the forester is permanent cultivation, forest 

 farming, and this is every year more necessary as population leaps forw'ard 

 and the original virgin forest supply diminishes. The lumberman must turn 

 to the forester for help. The lumbermen of the future will be foresters. The 

 difficulty now is that lumbering is still in the hands of men of the old idea, 

 men with fixed business habits, enterprising, seeking large and quick returns, 

 and willing to expend enormous energy to obtain them. They can be satisfied 

 with nothing less. But the great and quick profits of the old days of 

 lumbering accessible virgin forests are gone with the forests. To these men the 

 methods of forestry are unpractical. It is necessary for them to readjust 

 their view and to recognize forests as a resource in the perpetuation and 

 permanent productiveness of which the whole people have an interest that 

 must dominate any private interest. 



Then again the markets are not adjusted yet to new conditions. We are 

 the most extravagant users of lumber in the world and we chafe at increased 

 I)rices. The consumer has a duty in this matter of adjustment that is quite 

 as serious as that of the forester and the lumberman. The general application 

 of forestry will not cheapen lumber products. It will steady the market, but 

 scientific production and intensive cultivation always cost something, and 

 those who look for a return to former low prices of forest products as a result 

 of forestry are doomed to disappointment. The saving must be made through 

 more careful and economical use. Our consumption per capita is the highest 

 of any nation of the world. The consumer must learn to pay the price for 

 good stock and make his saving by more care and restraint in use. 



Practical? There is no theory about it at all. It is everyday economics 

 based on cold facts. If forestry ever occupied the realm of theory the advanced 

 practice of other nations has removed it therefrom. 



NATION AND STATE AND ASSOCIATION 



XN THE course of recent correspondence in which a writer expressed 

 dissent from the principles of the American Forestry Association, an 

 inquiry as to the reason for this dissent brought out the statement that 

 ''the American Forestry Association stands for federal control, whereas we 

 all in this part of the country believe in state control of all natural resources." 



To the readers of this magazine it is not necessary to point out the error 

 involved in this statement. It arises from a misconception, both of the 

 attitude of the Association and of the issue involved in the control of natural 

 resources. On the first of these points proof is easy. The attitude of the 

 American Forestry Association has had official expression in resolutions 

 ad()j)ted each year at the annual meetings, and especially in the admirable 

 statement of the current year. To say that the American Forestry Association 

 stands for federal control is both true and untrue. The preamble to the 

 resolutions of 1911 states its position very clearly: 



"Whereas the American Forestry Association stands distinctly for the 

 agencies, national, state, municipal and private which are working for con- 

 servation and perpetual renewal of our forests;" and the fifth paragraph of 



