The Porester. 



Vol. V. DECEMBER, 1899. No. 12. 



What Forestry Means to the United States. 



BY THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Among the great questions which bear directly both on the present prosperity of the 

 United States and upon the future wealth and happiness of its people, forestry occupies 

 a conspicuous place. To realize how prominent is its part among the problems of our 

 national life it is only necessary to glance at its relation to the great industries of the 

 country. Practically all manufactures are tributary, directly or indirectly, to the forest. 

 The great business of transportation would be wholly impossible without it. A failure 

 of timber in mining is often as disastrous as the failure of the ore-body itself. Even 

 Agriculture, without the products of the forest, would be everywhere seriously crippled 

 and in many parts of the country almost absolutely impossible. In a word, forestry is 

 interwoven with the whole of our present activity as a nation. 



The public mind has not, however, always been awake to the vital connection of for- 

 estry with our national welfare, nor has it always understood what the term itself de- 

 notes. To quote from an article in the last year-book of the Department of Agriculture : 



"The meaning of the word 'forestry' changes in the public mind from decade 

 to decade. The change is due not only to a better understanding of the subjects with 

 which forestry deals, but also to a radical difference in the way forestry is esteemed. 

 The progress of the knowledge of any subject is almost always accompanied by a 

 change in the point of view from which that subject is regarded. Thus, electricity, 

 from being a matter of purely scientific curiosity, has made its way in public thought 

 to the position of one of the foremost industrial forces of the time, with the promise of 

 such future usefulness that whatever relates to it finds a ready hearing. In somewhat 

 the same way forestry is gradually winning a better standing and a larger place in the 

 consideration of the people. 



" At first forestry was understood to relate to trees ; and it was not until recently that 

 it began to be seen that it has far less to do with individual trees than with forests. At 

 that time landscape work and forestry were completely confounded, nor even at this 

 day is the distinction always clearly made. Street trees were supposed to be the special 

 province of the forester, and even yet one of the great Eastern cities has a city forester, 

 whose duties are not concerned with any forest land. This point of view has served a 

 most useful purpose, it is true, in enlisting the countenance and support of verj many 

 persons whose interest in forest matters, rightly so called, would have been small in- 

 deed, but it may fairly be questioned whether there has not been a counterbalancing 

 loss of the good will and consideration of practical lumbermen and owners of forest land. 



"Apart from the aesthetic point of view just referred to, a serious check to the progress 

 of forestry, or, as this side of it might well be called, of conservative lumbering, was 



