RESTORATION AND TREATMENT OF FORESTS 21 



great extent, depend upon natural processes for such resto- 

 ration of our forests as will enable them to produce an ade- 

 quate supply of forest products, we must turn to some 

 other method whereby we can in some way aid Nature ; and 

 when we accept that fact and act upon it we shall engage 

 in practical forestry with reasonable hope of success. We 

 well know that our forest conditions are quite unlike those 

 in European countries, but ours are practically the same 

 as were theirs two hundred years ago. Since success has 

 crowned their efforts, why may not the same results occur 

 here? It needs no argument to show that the principles 

 which underlie tree-culture are alike everywhere ; therefore 

 we should by no means conclude that we are in the dark. 

 We have before us the results of two centuries of European 

 experience and we certainly should profit by that experi- 

 ence wherever it is applicable to our conditions and climate. 

 We are at the " parting of the ways." One road and 

 it is the one we have been following will lead us to the 

 same estate' that prevails in western Asia and much of 

 northern Africa and southern Europe a condition of 

 dreary desert. If the other is followed, the shorn and tree- 

 less hills and mountains of our country may again be cov- 

 ered with forests, the beauty of the landscape be restored, 

 our springs and streams once more be flowing in their for- 

 mer uniform fullness, and our economic needs of forest 

 products be amply supplied. There is no middle road to 

 take and reach success. Our forests are too near exhaustion 

 to depend upon natural reforestation. Either they will go 

 the way of all neglected forests, leaving this land ill 

 adapted to the abode of civilized man, or restoration 

 through man's efforts must be brought about. We are in 

 no condition to defy the experience of others, or adopt 

 theories not based on practical common sense. Mistakes in 

 forestry are so long-lived that the errors of one generation 

 are handed down to another. If ever the sins of the fathers 

 will burden their children they will in this case, if we com- 

 mit them. 



