1900. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



21 



KORKSTKR. 



A MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



DEVOTED TO ARBORICULTURE AND FORESTRY, THE CARE AND USE OF FORESTS 

 AND FOREST TREES, AND RELATED SUBJECTS. 



THE OFFICIAL ORGAN OF 



The American forestry Association, 



President, Hon. JAMES WILSON, 



Secretary of Agriculture. 



The subscription price of THE FORESTER is One Dollar a year, single copies ten cents. 

 All checks and drafts should be made payable to THE FORESTER, and all communications ad- 

 Iressed to the office of publication, 



107 Corcoran Building, Washington, D. C. 



THE FORESTER is on sale at all news stands in the principal cities. If your newsman does not 

 tave it, he will secure it upon request. 



JOHN KEIM STAUFFER, EDITOR. 



The work of the American Forestry Associa- 

 ion as an organization is described so fully in 

 he account of the eighteenth annual meeting 

 hat any comment further on that line would be 

 uperfluous. But in connection with the gen- 

 ral review of the forest movement, historically 

 :onsidercd, several items of interest which have 

 :ome to the desk of the editor suggest them- 

 selves in passing. 



As every one knows, promoters of ideas at 

 'ariance with generally accepted views have 

 he dubious satisfaction of realizing a certain 

 mblic appreciation of their individuality of 

 bought, yet not without the occasional accom- 

 >animent of purely gratuitous personalities. 

 ?he advocates of forestry have survived the 

 gnominy of being termed "unhappy theorists" 

 tnd being the recipients of similar pleasantries 

 rom those whose interest in the subject was 

 hat of to-day only ; but it remained for 

 me of our lumber contemporaries to reprove 

 in advanced thinker within their own fold by 

 :reating a new word of opprobrium for the new 

 ' craze." 



Now that the leading lumber journals have 

 professed their belief in the necessity of some 

 "orm of forest preservation, the reproof adnrin- 

 stered then seems worthy of note. Regarding 

 :he matter, the editor of the paper writes : 



"This journal was the first of the lumber 

 trade papers to advocate forest protection and 

 to declaim against the wanton destruction of 

 timber, and we were denounced fifteen years 

 a g. by an esteemed Chicago contemporary, as 

 a 'denudatic' on that account. Most of our 

 patrons make their money by cutting down 

 trees and converting them into merchantable 

 forms of wood goods, and you can readily realize 

 that our pleas for forest protection, preservation, 

 renewal, etc., reached a very unsympathetic cli- 

 entele. 



"However, we are glad to know the subject 

 of practical forestry is rapidly gaining impor- 

 tance in public estimation. Fifteen years ago 

 it was considered a mere ' fad ' in the South ; 

 now it is regarded by all intelligent people as a 

 very serious problem." 



The lumberman's view is also the view of the 

 water conservator, as the " Irrigation Age " says 

 briefly, but to the point : 



" The question of forest preservation directly 

 interests every irrigable section. Water for irri- 

 gation has its source, in almost every case, in 

 forested regions, and if these areas are destroyed 

 by reckless cutting, or firing, the water supply 

 will fail in time of need as surely as the forests 

 are destroyed." 



