EDITORIAL 



FORWARD STEPS IN FEDERAL FORESTRY LEGISLATION 



LOOKING back upon the efforts of the past two years 

 to secure federal forestry legislation, advocates of 

 the cause can well give thoughtful consideration to the 

 extent to which differences of opinion among them- 

 selves on certain points have served to delay the move- 

 ment as a whole. Unquestionably, the four most im- 

 portant planks in any forestry program for this country 

 are (1) the regulation of the cutting of privately owned 

 timber, (2) the control of forest fires, (3) the expansion 

 of research, both in forest production and in forest utili- 

 zation, and (4) the extension of state and federal forest 

 holdings. 



There is substantial unanimity of opinion on all these 

 planks except the first. But there is a very clear-cut 

 divergence of views as to whether the state or the fed- 

 eral government should have authority to control or 

 prescribe the methods of cutting private stumpage. It 

 is around that point that the fight among the advocates 

 of a national forest policy has centered and it is right 

 there that the supporters of different views can give 

 common thought to the extent to which their disagree- 

 ment on that one plank threatens to postpone indefinitely 

 legislation embodying the other planks. 



The forest situation in the United States is urgent at 

 too many points to justify a policy of doing nothing 

 until all can agree on every principle involved. There is 

 no sense in delaying action on fire protection because 

 there isdivision as to methods of cutting, or in restrict- 



ing research because opinions differ on some other policy 

 The critical period in our forest history will be the period 

 between the exhaustion of our old growth, virgin timber 

 and the harvest of our man-grown timber. That period 

 is close upon us and the most immiediate protection 

 against it is fire protection and the development, through 

 research, of more complete utilization of our present an- 

 nual cut. Every year's delay in conserving our present 

 timber reserve brings the day of shortage that much 

 closer. 



Going forward with principles with which we are all 

 in harmony involves the surrender of no convictions. 

 Is it not, as a matter of fact, the clearest evidence of wis- 

 dom and the highest expression of service to achieve 

 those urgent principles which seem nearest achievement 

 by virtue of common support and to leave disputed 

 principles to separate or subsequent consideration, or if 

 need be, to the development of a more fully informecJ 

 public opinion? Legislation embodying any one of the 

 four planks or principles mentioned is susceptible of 

 being handled separately and largely on its own merits ; 

 or all those principles upon which there is unanimity of 

 support, could be grouped in one bill and presented to 

 Congress as the common advocacy of all. Congress would 

 then have no excuse to delay action on fire protection, 

 enlarged research and extension of federal forests pend- 

 ing settlement of the question of control of cutting on pri- 

 vate timberlands. 



FOREST DEPLETION IN GEORGIA 



nPHE Georgia Forestry Association has come into 

 being at an opportune time. It has a large and 

 urgent field of endeavor before it. In no state in the 

 South proper does forest depletion appear to be proceed- 

 ing at a more rapid rate than in Georgia. Two of its 

 most important industries are at stake, lumbering and 

 naval stores. These are industries which for years have 

 played an important part in the economic life of the state. 

 Until recent years, they furnished employment to more 

 wage earners than any other manufacturing industry in 

 Georgia. 



It is unfortunate for the prosperity and development 

 of the state that the waning of these two ranking indus- 

 tries is taking place at a time when the state's leading 

 industry, the manufacture of cotton goods, is threatened 

 by the ravages of the boll weevil. The decline of these 

 three industries simultaneously unless guarded against 

 by prompt remedial action, will be a set back to the 

 state which will take years to overcome. Already un- 

 healthy conditions are in evidence and while the forests 

 are rapidly being exhausted, they are nevertheless res- 

 cuing cotton growers from bankruptcy in some sections 



of the state. The farmer, dependent upon his cotton crop 

 and finding it devastated by the boll weevil, is turning to 

 his woodlot as his main means of support. 



The situation is one of impending economic menace 

 to the state, because its forest resources are being so 

 rapidly spent. They cannot longer be depended upon to 

 exert a stabilising influence industrially during periods of 

 stress in other industries of the state. As a matter of 

 fact, conditions are quite the reverse. The forest indus- 

 tries of Georgia are dwindling and not growing indus- 

 tries. From industries of first importance they are slip- 

 ping back year by year as any industry whose supply 

 of raw material is vanishing, must do. 



During a period of less than a decade and a half, 

 the production of lumber in Georgia has declined prac- 

 tically 50 per cent, a loss to the state of over $13,000,000 

 annually in the sale of lumber alone. During the same 

 period, the state has lost 1300 sawmills, or 65 per cent of 

 the number operating in 1909. It is impossible to arrive 

 at the aggregate investment represented by these mills, 

 but it must run well into eight figures. In addition, 

 there is the loss of labor, taxes and markets. In the 



