THE FORESTER. 



The important contrast between econo- 

 mic conditions in the United States and 

 those, for example, in Germany is per- 

 haps too potent and familiar to require 

 extended notice. A single consideration 

 \vill suffice to show that contrast in its 

 proper importance. Forestry in so far as 

 it relates to productive forests is neither 

 more nor less than an enlightened form of 

 business management. The question of 

 profit and loss is in this case always the 

 first and the last. In Germany the popu- 

 lation is dense, labor is cheap, every forest 

 product has commercial value. In the 

 United States the conditions are reversed. 

 The inference need hardly be drawn. As 

 a matter of business, the management of 

 productive forests cannot be so conserva- 

 tive or so intensive here as there. Conse- 

 quently all that body of legal regulations 

 which in Germany, and in Germany only, 

 is economically possible and useful would 

 be worthless because inapplicable in the 

 United States. 



Again, different forms of government, 

 which of course imply different material 

 ideals, determine to a marked degree the 

 practicability of a specific kind of legisla- 

 tion. The German, for instance, admits 

 and even courts government control where 

 the American would stiffen his democratic 

 backbone against central authority or pa- 

 ternalism. In the United States, there- 

 fore, it is not desirable, because it is not 

 feasible either for the forest owner to 

 adopt a Teutonic economy of manage- 

 ment, or for government, whether State 

 or Federal, to assume an imperial custody 

 of the individual's interests. Plainly, then, 

 it is both impolitic and unjustifiable to 

 censure the American lumberman as irra- 

 tional because his business methods have 

 iu .1 at all points the systematic conserva- 

 tion of the German, or to demand of the 

 State that it shall take upon itself the care 

 and custody of each and every forest tract. 

 Yet the theoretic contrast offered by a 

 comparison of the situation in the two 

 o.mitries mentioned should not be over- 

 i-i.iphasi/ed. Despite all differences a 

 fundamental principle gives a bond of 

 union. This is the principle that the good 

 >l the many must sometimes be sought at 



the cost of the few. Applied to forestry, 

 it takes the form that government possesses 

 the right and hence the duty to restrict the 

 liberty of the individual producer or con- 

 sumer of timber so far as may be neces- 

 sary for the sake of all or for the sake of 

 posterity. The conception of ' ' protective 

 forests" illustrates this principle perfectly. 

 Where the general or permanent well- 

 being of a district requires the maintenance 

 of forest conditions over a definite propor- 

 tion of its area, while local appreciation 

 of requirements is wanting or inadequate, 

 there government may and should inter- 

 vene between the individual and the com- 

 munity, or between the interests of the 

 moment and the rights of later generations. 

 There all distinctions, whether national or 

 other, vanish before the general human 

 interest. And this same principle ex- 

 tends beyond the sphere of mere protec- 

 tion. Not only is it needful that many 

 of the forest areas of our country be pre- 

 served intact, as where continuous water- 

 supply for irrigation is the first want, 

 but it is needful also that its forests as a 

 whole be exploited with all possible econ- 

 omy and foresight. Where economic con- 

 ditions compel present methods, the law 

 can intervene only to alter these condi- 

 tions; it cannot force the lumberman to 

 ignore them. In districts, for example, 

 where taxes on forest lands are excessive 

 the law cannot justly force the owner to 

 delay the harvesting of his timber crop so 

 long that his profits are eaten up ; but it 

 can reduce the taxes, or render them pay- 

 able when the crop is harvested, or com- 

 mute them into taxes on the gross receipts 

 of the sales of harvested timber, or in some 

 other way alter the conditions so a.s to re- 

 move the necessity of hasty and excessive 

 cutting so far as the high taxes are the 

 cause of it. 



But if the American lumberman is not 

 always in the wrong, according to the 

 fanatical cry of the early forest movement 

 amongst us, neither is he always in the 

 right. He is in the business to make 

 money, it is true, and he has the right to 

 make it as fast and as long as he pleases. 

 Nevertheless, if forestry is first of all an 

 enlightened form of business management, 



