FORESTRY AND PATIENCE 



BY QUINCY R. CRAFT, U. S. FOREST SERVICE, DENVER, COLORADO 



«/^NE soweth and another reapeth" is perhaps never 



I I more true than in the work of the forester. For 



not only in awaiting results of physical effort, but 



also in inducing the public to adopt methods which look to 



the future, patience as well as science is requisite. How 



often timber holders who undertook to handle their lands 



under forest working plans prepared in co-operation with 



the Forest Service abandoned the purpose until it seemed 



that for the present the practice of forestry on a large 



scale must be limited to Government and State work! 



The first working plan for Government forest lands 



after two decades, we find an enduring demonstration of 

 the benefits of conservation worked out in detail in the 

 conditions of employment and daily life of those affected? 

 The example to which reference is made is the lum- 

 bering operations of the Homestake Mining Company, 

 centered at Nemo, South Dakota. A well-equipped log- 

 ging road connects the sawmill with Company, State and 

 Government-owned timber tracts, on the one hand, and 

 the market, on the other, and all operations contemplate 

 thirty years, if not an indefinite run. Assurance of con- 

 tinued employment promotes efficiency and thrift, and 



FINE EXAMPLE OF CONSERVATIOX 



Area cut over by Homestake Company under combined shelterwood and selection system of marking. 

 i and a stand of thrifty growing yellow nine is left. 



The timber cut has been completely utilized 



and one of the very first for any large timber tract was 

 prepared in the vicinity of Nemo, in the northeastern 

 Black Hills of South Dakota in 1898, by Henry S. Graves. 

 A picture of a part of this area in which young growth 

 had been preserved and fire protection, facilitated by a 

 good clean-up was used on the first Forest Service calen- 

 dar. An enlargement hangs in many supervisors' offices, 

 and it has been used more generally for lantern slides and 

 newspaper illustrations of good forestry in America than 

 almost any other. 



Is it significant that in this very part of the Black Hills 



the type of men and the manner in which the work is 

 conducted indicate that hardship and reckless daring are 

 not necessarily connected with lumbering. 



Nemo and the small valley in which it lies are very 

 attractive for a permanent lumber camp; buildings are 

 kept in good repair, and large pines are carefully pro- 

 tected to provide a natural park in the center of the 

 town. The company store is well kept and carries goods 

 of quality and at prices that prove advantageous to For- 

 est officers whose location enable them to buy there. The 

 proverbial isolation of the lumber camp is relieved by 



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