KDITORIAL 



549 



rigidly adhered-to policy < i ii\--{ con- 

 servation is good, sound business. 1'lic 

 reforestation of denuded slopes, moun- 

 tainsides and watersheds is the only 

 sure preventive of Hoods. Floods 

 wash away, de-troy, and lay waste, an- 

 nually, property to the value of 

 millions uixm millions of dollars. 

 If, therefore, even twenty-five per 

 cent, of this waste can be pre- 

 vented by reforestation, it would seem 

 as if the "sound business sense" of a 

 community would not hesitate a second 

 to adopt such a policy. But there are 

 other equally sound reasons for adopt- 

 ing such a policy reasons sounder by 

 far than those upon which rest the 

 present industrial development of the 

 a.untry. Railroads require ties; mines 

 have to be timbered ; city building calls 

 for lumber : farmers must have at least 

 measurably fertile soil ; and upon a . 

 prosperous, permanent and contented 

 farming element rests the ultimate 

 prosperity of any community or state. 

 If the supply of railroad ties, let us 

 say, in Pennsylvania, is approaching 

 exhaustion, it becomes necessary for 

 the roads to seek their ties farther 

 away, and the same is true as regards 

 the mines. The farther away the tim- 

 ber supply is. the more it must neces- 

 sarily cost to secure it. Kverybody who 

 has built, in the pa>t few years, knows 

 how the price of lumber has increased. 

 \nd, as regards the farmer and his 

 "worn-out" farm, tin- reports of the im- 

 migration officers of the ( 'anadian 

 northwest make interesting reading. 

 Hundreds and thousands of American 

 farmers have, well within the la-t de- 

 cade, moved across the border, leaving 

 their "worn-out" farms for the virgin 

 -oil- of Alberta. Manitoba, or Kritish 

 ("olumbia. Railroads and factories can 

 not easily follow tin- example of the 

 fanners; but even factories may close 

 down permanently, and railroads are no 

 strangers to receiverships. With a per 

 manently prosperous fanning commun- 

 ity a state will have prosperous factor- 

 ies and industrial concern the tw- 



hand in hand: and with these, the rail- 

 roads have plenty of business. Xow, 

 for the words "worn out," as applied 



t > farms, write "u ashed away," and \oii 

 have it. I-'arni-. the top -oil of winch 

 has all been carried into the rivers and 

 jloun to the -ea, cannot produce crop-, 

 and SO the fanners are compelled to go 

 elseuhere. And with the going of tin- 

 farmers the extinguishment of a per- 

 manentlv prosperous agricultural popu- 

 lation goes the basic principle of in- 

 dustrial or any other prosperity. Pr > 

 ted the fore-is and you protect the 

 farms; protect the farms and you re- 

 tain the farmers ; retain the farmer- 

 and you maintain the prosperity of the 

 community it is as simple and as ob- 

 vious as that two and two make four. 



','=' 



A Permanent Timber Supply 



AND not alone from this side can it 

 be unanswerably argued that it is 

 sound business sense to preserve tin- 

 forests and to reforest the stripped 

 slopes and watersheds of the land. Take 

 the following illustration : A young 

 man starts in life with $10,000, invested 

 so as to bring him six per cent, a year. 

 Now, this young man cannot, or d< >es 

 not want to get along on S6oo annually, 

 so he uses his income and, yearly. 

 trenches upon his principal to tin- 

 amount of an additional 'KX). Tin- 

 second year he must draw still more 

 heavily upon his capital: he cannot do 

 with Jess than Si.joo per year. And 

 so. at a steadily increasing rate, his 

 capital is wiped out, until, in a few 

 years he ha- neither income nor capi- 

 tal. Your "practical business man" 

 would call this young man a fool, and 

 he would be right. But this very th 

 is what the sensible business meM of 

 the country have been doing for a long 



time. Let the $io,ooo represent the o 



inal timln-r Mipply of. say. Pennsyl- 

 vania : let the sj\ per cent, represent 

 the natural annual production, and let 

 the Si.J<*> stand for the annual con- 

 sumption of timber. < >r apply the il- 

 lustration to the country at large. Now. 

 instead of making Mcady. year by year 

 inroads on the fore-ts. it would have 

 been as easy to provide for a perma- 



