1338 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



dustrial frontier, such as has been its substantial status here- 

 tofore. 



There is neither reason nor truth in the slogan that: Where 

 a tree is cut another tree should be grown. Such a policy, pur- 

 sued throughout this land, would entail great waste in the use 

 of the nation's resources. It is the thoughtless cry of those who 

 believe that nature left unaided and undisturbed should be the 

 universal regulator of the economic life of mankind. 



3. The fact that old trees are being cut down faster 

 than new trees are growing up does not of itself signify 



public loss. 



It may mean the diverting of some of the productive energies 

 of the nation into more profitable channels than would be offered 

 by the forest industries. The United States is passing through 

 the same evolution of changing lumber requirements experienced 

 by many other countries. During the past 15 years the per 

 capita annual consumption of lumber has declined from more 

 than 500 board feet to approximately 300 board feet, as against 

 150 feet in Germany immediately before the war, 102 feet in 

 England and 90 feet in France. 



4. The virtual disappearance of certain species of 

 timber is not necessarily detrimental to public welfare. 



For commercial purposes many species are readily inter- 

 changeable. Practically the same things which are now made 

 from a hundred commercial species could be made and the same 

 uses and comforts derived therefrom — from a dozen different 

 species well selected for permanent growth. The elimination 

 from commerce of certain species, provided adequate substi- 

 tutes are preserved, would involve no necessary impairment of 

 public wealth. 



5. Not only is it not necessarily, but it is not even 

 probably true, that all the lands in the United States 

 better suited for growing trees than for growing any- 

 thing else, should be used for growing trees. 



To use an extreme contrast: If 95 per cent of the land of 

 the United States were better suited for pasture land than for 

 any other purpose would 95 per cent be used for that purpose 

 and we become a nation of herdsmen? Or, if 60 per cent of the 

 area of this country were better suited for growing trees than for 

 agriculture or stockraising, would 60 per cent be so used and 

 the United States then have lumber enough to house five times 

 the number of people it could feed? 



But this doctrine is being publicly preached as ideal ! 



6. The disappearance of forest industries in certain 

 regions because of exhaustion of nearby timber supplies 

 is not necessarily either a local or national misfortune. 



Clearing of the land has frequently paved the way for in- 

 dustrial and agricultural expansion which has produced greater 

 wealth than did the forest industries in their prime. It would 

 be a waste of labor, as well as of capital, to attempt to continue 

 an industrial enterprise under conditions which would have re- 

 turned, as the result of a day's labor, a product worth only 

 $1,000, when the same labor, and the same amount of capital, 

 under more favorable available conditions of employment would 

 have returned a product worth, say $2,000. 



Surely there is no public economy in making a wasteful use 

 of capital and of human effort. Yet this doctrine is being pub- 

 licly advocated. 



7. Economically the original timber in the United 

 States is in large part a "mine" and not a "crop." 



The business of lumber manufacture is no more the business 

 of growing trees than the business of flour milling is the busi- 

 ness of growing wheat. Men who buy timber and operate saw. 

 mills are not foresters any more than persons who buy coal 

 lands and operate mines are geologists. The business of the 

 lumber manufacturer is to make boards out of trees and if he 



does that well he is performing the best public service that his 

 industry can render. 



It is not his business to make more trees out of which some 

 one else some day may make more boards. By fortuitous cir- 

 cumstance the lumber manufacturer is likewise usually an 

 owner of land, some or all of which may have greatest ulti- 

 mate usefulness in reforestation. But this ownership of po- 

 tential forest land does not put the owner under obligation — 

 moral, social or legal — to undertake the growing of trees when 

 to do so would be unprofitable, any more than the ownership of 

 potential farm land obliges the owner to raise farm crops when 

 he could do so only at a loss. 



If the growing of timber is an appropriate private enterprise, 

 which I doubt, the interest of the public (provided it is well 

 informed) in the maintenance of permanent timber supplies will 

 find expression in some form which will result in economic 

 conditions making profitable private enterprise in growing 

 timber. If it is not an appropriate private enterprise the sooner 

 adequate provision is made for doing it as a public enterprise 

 the better. Public agencies would under such conditions ex- 

 perience no difficulty in acquiring from present owners the 

 lands appropriate for use in reforestation. 



Public indifference and inactivity cannot, however, encumber 

 the private owner of timber lands with the responsibility for, or 

 expense of, doing something the public should do, but does not. 



8. Local shrinkage of employment for labor, caused 

 by vanishing forest industries in certain regions, has 

 been by no means an unmixed evil for labor. 



Employment at higher wages has usually been secured by re- 

 moval to similar industries in other regions, or to other in- 

 dustries in the same region, the higher prices for the products 

 resulting from increasing scarcity of raw material, making the 

 payment of higher wages possible. Temporary dislocation of 

 labor has always accompanied at some stage the industrial use 

 of exhaustible natural resources. 



9. The idleness of some of the cut-over timber lands 

 is the inevitable temporary result of clearing the forests 

 from lands upon which maintenance of permanent forest 

 growth would be poor public economy. Agriculture, 

 stockraising or other purposes will eventually absorb 

 these lands. 



10. The idleness of other of the cut-over timber lands 

 is the inevitable result of clearing the forest from lands 

 upon which regrowing of a new forest would be poor 

 private economy. 



If the public needs these lands to be reforested before the 

 time when enlightened self-interest — which is the essential 

 driving force of all business and industry — induces the private 

 owner to engage in timber growing, the public should itself 

 engage in reforestation of lands appropriate therefor. 



11. The owner of private property in timber lands 

 legally acquired is under no different or greater obliga- 

 tion to use his land permanently to grow timber than the 

 owner of agricultural land is to use the land to grow 

 crops if the growing of crops is unprofitable. The public 

 need for food is at least no less than the need for lumber. 

 Lands on stony hillsides in remote New England are 

 scratched into agricultural productivity which would not 

 be even sniffed at in the more fertile country of the 

 Middle West. 



12. The legal obligation upon the owner of property, 

 an obligation that is universal and should be enforced, 

 so to use it as to do no damage to another's property and 

 to do no public injury, does not include an additional 



