238 APPENDIX. 



States and Territories, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and 

 from Canada to Mexico. Over 900,000 acres of private forest 

 were under management recommended by the Service, and 

 appHcations on file for advice from owners contemplating 

 management covered 2,000,000 acres more. Daring the year 

 nearly 62,000 letters were sent out from the offices at 

 Washington, the majority of them in reply to requests for 

 information and advice from the public, of a kind which could 

 not be met by printed information. 



This contrast imperfectly indicates the foil extent of the 

 change which has taken place, and the progress which has 

 been made. Seven years ago there were in the whole United 

 States less than ten professional foresters. Neither a science 

 nor a literature of American forestry was in existence, nor 

 could an education in the subject be obtained in this country. 

 Systematic forestry was in operation on the estate of a single 

 owner, honorably desirous of furnishing an object lesson in 

 an unknown field. Lumbermen and forest owners were 

 sceptical of the success of forest management, and largely 

 hostile to its introduction. Among the public at large a feel- 

 ing in favour of forest preservation, largely on sentimental 

 grounds, was fairly widespread, but almost wholly mis- 

 informed. It confounded use with destruction, shade-tree 

 planting with forestry. 



The real need of forestry was urgent. A time had come 

 which presented at once a great opportunity and a dangerous 

 crisis. Forest destruction had reached a point where 

 sagacious men — most of all, sagacious lumbermen — could 

 plainly discern the not distant end. The lumber industry, 

 vital to the nation at large, was rushing to its own extinction, 

 yet with no avenue of escape apparent until forest manage- 

 ment for future crops should be forced by famine prices. 

 Meanwhile, howevei", the ruin would have been wrought 

 already. 



Timber-land owners were selling their holdings or their 

 stumpage with little evidence of an understanding of their 



