APPENDIX. 239 



future value, and lumbermen were compelled by business 

 competition to keep down the cost of operation to the lowest 

 terms or market their product at a loss. 



Forestry was both an evident economic need and an 

 apparent economic impossibility. Few well-informed persons 

 believed that the obstacles to its introduction could be 

 overcome sufficiently to bring it into common practice 

 among private owners during the lives of the present 

 generation. 



That the whole situation is profoundly altered is directly 

 and chiefly due to the work of the Forest Service. With its 

 offer of practical assistance to forest owners made in the fall 

 of 1898, its field of action shifted from the desk to the woods. 

 The lumberman was met on his own ground. Uncertain 

 speculations were converted into business propositions and 

 untried theories into practical rules. Actual management for 

 purely commercial ends has been taken up and applied on 

 their own holdings by some of the best known lumbermen in 

 the country. "What lumbermen as a body now think of 

 forestry is illustrated by the recent effective movement in 

 their National association to endow a chair of luml)ering at 

 one of the forest schools. 



Public opinion generally has experienced an equal change, 

 and a sound National sentiment has been created. The great 

 and varied interests dependent upcr the forest have been 

 awakened to the urgent need of making provision for the 

 future. States have been led to enact wise laws and enter 

 upon a well-considered forest policy. 



Forestry is a matter of immediate interest to ever}' 

 household in the land. Forest destruction is no imaginary 

 danger of a distant future. If it is not speedily checked 

 its effects will sooner or later be felt in every industry 

 and every home. To make these facts known is a 

 National duty. The work of education must continue until 

 public opinion will not tolerate lieedless waste or injudicious 

 laws. 



