THE AMERICAN FORESTS 171 



and cheap transportation of the forest products; the 

 results so far have been most beneficial and 

 encouraging. 



It seems, therefore, that almost every civilized 

 nation can give us a lesson on the management and 

 care of forests. So far our Government has done 

 nothing effective with its forests, though the best 

 in the world, but is like a rich and foolish spend- 

 thrift who has inherited a magnificent estate in per- 

 fect order, and then has left his rich fields and 

 meadows, forests and parks, to be sold and plun- 

 dered and wasted at will, depending on their inex- 

 haustible abundance. Now it is plain that the 

 forests are not inexhaustible, and that quick meas- 

 ures must be taken if ruin is. to be avoided. Year by 

 year the remnant is growing smaller before the axe 

 and fire, while the laws in existence provide neither 

 for the protection of the timber from destruction nor 

 for its use where it is most needed. 



Notwithstanding all the waste and use which have 

 been going on unchecked like a storm for more than 

 two centuries, it is not yet too late, though it is high 

 time, for the Government to begin a rational admin- 

 istration of its forests. About seventy million acres 

 it still owns enough for all the country, if wisely 

 used. These residual forests are generally on moun- 

 tain slopes, just where they are doing the most good, 

 and where their removal would be followed by 



