FORESTRY ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 



209 



creeks, and rivers are kept flowing dur- 

 ing the summer and in times of drought. 



"So much for Forest Fires now as 

 to Unwise Taxation : 



"Remember that a farmer growing 

 grain may annually harvest and sell his 

 crop, and have wherewith to pay his 

 taxes, but the timber grower raises a 

 crop that does not mature for thirty or 

 forty or fifty years or more, and the 

 taxes should be adjusted so as to bear 

 on the yield when it comes with the 

 cutting of the timber, and not be 

 assessed and made payable annually, or 

 the owner will cut and sell his timber to 

 avoid the annual tax on a crop giving 

 no annual return. Legislation of this 

 nature formulated by Committees of 

 the Pennsylvania Forestry and Con- 

 servation Associations was enacted in 

 Pennsylvania in 1913 to encourage re- 

 forestation by private owners, and 

 similar action has been taken in New 

 York, Louisiana, and Connecticut, and 

 is in contemplation in other States: 

 Massachusetts and Ohio have recently 

 adopted Constitutional amendments 

 permitting such legislation, and its 

 importance is becoming generally ap- 

 preciated. 



"Whether timber-growing will be 

 undertaken on any large scale by 

 private owners, in this country, even 

 under the most favorable conditions of 

 protection, taxation, and location, is 

 problematical. The work is apparently 

 one mainly for the Federal and State 

 Governments, though much can be done 

 'by the private citizen who remembers 

 1 the Laird's injunction in the ' Heart of 

 Midlothian,' when on his death-bed 

 he enjoined tree-planting on his son, 

 'saying, 'Jock, when ye hae naething 

 'else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a 

 tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye're 

 'sleeping.' Walter Scott, in a foot- 

 note, says of this, 'The Author has 

 been flattered by the assurance that 

 this naive mode of recommending 

 arboriculture (which was actually de- 

 livered in these very words by a High- 

 land laird while on his death-bed, to his 

 son), had so much weight with a 

 .Scottish earl as to lead to his planting 

 : a large tract of country.' 



"The National Government under 



the provisions of Acts of Congress 

 enacted in 1891 and 1896 has set aside 

 large areas for National Forest Reserves 

 in some twenty States, about 140,000,- 

 000 acres net area (not counting 

 alienated lands located within the 

 boundaries of the National Reserves); 

 in addition to which there are nearly 

 27,000,000 acres in Alaska, and about 

 66,000 acres in Porto Rico, 167,066,000 

 acres of Government Reserves; if we 

 reckon with this the land located within 

 the boundaries of the National Forests, 

 approximately 21,000,000 acres which 

 have been alienated, we have about 

 188,000,000 acres in all. These re- 

 serves are admirably managed by the 

 United States Forest Service organized 

 in the Department of Agriculture under 

 the charge of Henry S. Graves, United 

 States Forester. 



"Fourteen states have set aside areas 

 ranging from 1,950 acres in one state, to 

 231,350 in Michigan, 400,000 in Wis- 

 consin, 983,529 in Pennsylvania, and 

 1,644,088 in New York, as State 

 Forests, the total area so set aside in all 

 States being 3,246,832 acres; and these 

 States in their Forestry or Conservation 

 Bureaus are studying and promoting the 

 best utilization of these lands for the 

 public needs. This is supplemented by 

 the work of the Forestry schools and 

 Forestry Associations of the land. A 

 striking instance of this is shown in the 

 study of harvest-bearing trees, made 

 during the past summer by Professor 

 J. Russell Smith of the Wharton School 

 of Finance and Commerce of the 

 University of Pennsylvania. 



"If we turn to the Bible for citations 

 in forestry, we find a rather utilitarian 

 view of forestry running through the 

 citations the interest seemed to center 

 in the preservation only of fruit or nut- 

 bearing trees; for instance in Deuter- 

 onomy, Chapter 20, verses 19-20, it is 

 written, (When thou shalt besiege a city 

 a long time, in making war against it to 

 take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees 

 thereof by wielding an axe against them ; 

 for thou mayest eat of them, and thou 

 shalt not cut them down, for is the tree 

 of the field man that it should be 

 besieged of thee ? Only the trees which 

 thou knowest that they be not trees 



