EDITOEIAL 427 



the resolution says "that the states should encourage private forestry by 

 extending the facilities for popular information on forestry subjects, by estab- 

 lishing demonstration forests, and especially by improving the system of 

 protection from forest tires and by reforming the laws on forest taxation. 

 That they should inaugurate the policy of buying land and acquiring a per- 

 petual forest cover and of managing such land by the state as an owner with 

 all the rights of an owner. That they should enforce a reasonable degree of 

 regulation on lands where the direct influence of the forest on streams and ero- 

 sion is clearly proven. That they should put the interpretation of such regu- 

 lation in the hands of a qualified forester with the power and with sufficient 

 assistance to ensure full enforcement." 



This is certainly a clear and explicit statement of the right and the duty 

 of the state to act in the field of forest conservation. The Association assumes 

 no doctrinaire position on this question. Probably among its members vary- 

 ing views are held as to the extent to which federal control should be excer- 

 cised, but we believe its members in every state in the Union are at one in their 

 desire to find the best solution of all the problems relating to the perpetuation 

 of our forests. 



The fact is that the line has been drawn altogether too sharply and 

 definitely between state and federal control in the popular mind by recent 

 discussions which have been carried on with some carlessness as to statement 

 and definition. The general issue is one older than the Constitution, and it 

 can never be settled simply for or against our federal system. Compromises 

 and adjustments, however distasteful to either side, always have had to be 

 made and always will be. It is undoubtedly true that modern means of com- 

 munication have united states and communities as never before, have brought 

 the states closer together and have nationalized many questions; but the 

 states still remain the units of our political system and in forestry matters 

 the American Forestry Association holds the function of the states to be of 

 the highest value, as the resolution above quoted shows. But it is also true 

 that the boundaries of forests and watersheds do not correspond with those of 

 states, and one state cannot do those things tnat would injure its neighbor. 

 Thus there is a legitimate field for national action for the common good, as 

 there was when the Louisiana territory was secured by the action of the 

 nation, which created from that territory the state from which our cor- 

 respondent writes, as a part of the United States. 



Furthermore, the nation possesses a great unalienated domain which it has 

 been found necessary to protect from private exploitation in order that the 

 people of all the states may not suffer loss for the profit of a few. Only 

 selfishness can question such an exercise of national control ; but to say that 

 the American Forestry Association stands, without qualification or explana- 

 tion, for federal control is one of those half-truths which is more injurious than 

 a complete misstatement. 



STATE FOREST LEGISLATION 



CHE intelligent activity of state legislatures during the last months in 

 the field of forest legislation promises well for the early development 

 of a nation-wide forest system in which each state will do its part. 

 It indicates an awakened public interest that is not abstract and concerns 

 itself with the immediate home problem. On the Pacific coast, California, 

 Oregon and Washington have all been active during their last legislative 

 sessions. In the middle west Minnesota has adopted a model forest code, 

 published last month in American Forestry, and has organized a forest 



