1899. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



5i 



Why Lumbermen Should Be Members of the 

 American Forestry Association. 



The prevalence of forest fires during 

 the past summer has called attention to 

 the necessity of forest protection with 

 unusual force. The destruction of forests 

 by fire brings losses to many parts 

 of the community, but to none more 

 direct and severe damage than to the 

 lumber interest; and the benefits that 

 would accrue to lumbermen through the 

 protection of forests against fire are 

 correspondingly great. Such protection 

 would mean the preservation of the raw 

 material of the lumber trade on the 

 stump, and in many cases the safety of 

 the private property of the lumberman 

 in the form of mill and machinery, dams, 

 roads or slides, as well as in that of 

 standing timber or logs in the woods. 

 Protection of this kind costs the lumber- 

 man very heavily at times, although the 

 State or Government should rightly bear 

 the cost of an organization to guard 

 against fire in the forest, just as cities 

 maintain fire engines and apparatus and 

 hire firemen at their own expense. 



The continuation of the lumberman's 

 business depends first of all on the suc- 

 cess of the attempt to check forest fires. 

 When the productive forests disappear 

 the lumberman will go with them. In 

 many parts of the country this result is 

 nearer at hand than is often supposed, 

 and in the case of individual millmen 

 great hardships are very frequently im- 

 posed by the destruction of their tribu- 

 tary timber by fire. 



Combined action on the part of all 

 who are interested in the protection of 

 forests and the perpetuation of the lum- 

 ber trade is absolutely necessary before 

 any successful attempt can be made to 

 check this enormous evil. Forest fires 

 throughout the United States are frequent 

 to a degree little understood except by 

 men familiar with the woods, and the 

 magnitude of the task of checking them 

 is correspondingly great. The Ameri- 

 can Forestry Association offers the means 



of united action between the lumbermen 

 of the East and West, the North and 

 South, toward this most necessary end. 

 Organization is absolutely essential in 

 any attempt of this kind, and the estab- 

 lished reputation of this Association, the 

 strong names already on its rolls, and its 

 history of honorable accomplishment, 

 make it by far the best means for the 

 purpose in hand. 



But if we suppose forest fires to be 

 checked throughout the country, the 

 interests of the lumber trade will still be 

 only partially protected. Destructive 

 methods of lumbering are often not less 

 harmful in their results to the lumber 

 business itself than the severest fires. 

 Lumbermen hitherto have given but lit- 

 tle attention to ways of cutting and 

 getting out their timber which would 

 not destroy the productive value of forest 

 land. In other words, cutting with 

 a view to perpetuating the supply of 

 lumber through the protection and repro- 

 duction of the forest has had little atten- 

 tion from lumbermen until now. Many 

 of those who have considered it have not 

 believed it was practical, but by far the 

 greater number have scarcely considered 

 it at all. 



Conservative lumbering differs more 

 widely from forest protection, as it is 

 understood by those mistaken friends of 

 the forest who are anxious to have all 

 the trees die on the stump, than from 

 the methods of lumbermen ordinarily 

 used. It consists simply in taking such 

 precautions in cutting and getting out 

 the timber as will insure a valuable 

 second-growth. In the Adirondack for- 

 ests of New York, for example, such 

 lumbering has recently been introduced 

 on two large tracts covering together 

 more than one hundred thousand acres, 

 and during the past fall and early winter 

 fifteen camps were cutting in this way. 

 The reasons which led to the adoption 

 of these methods were strictly business 



