18 PRACTICAL FORESTRY IN 



complish this there must be state officers who can and will 

 apprehend offenders without fear or favor. 



Any western state can well afford to spend $100,000 a year 

 for a forest fire service which will prevent a loss of fifty times 

 that sum. The cost is imperceptible by the citizen, his benefit 

 immediate. Forest protection is the cheapest form of pros- 

 perity insurance a timbered state can buy. 



Reforestation 



Although it does not pay to burn up our forests, it does pay 

 to use them. The faster we can replace them with new ones, 

 the quicker this profit can be made with safety. Forest land 

 is community capital. To let it lie idle is as wasteful as de- 

 struction. And we must also remember that the day is com- 

 ing when our forested streams must do a hundred times their 

 present duty, and when the lumber consumer's question may 

 not be "What must I pay for a board?" but "Can I get a 

 board at all ?" We must have new forests coming as the old 

 ones go. 



The Federal Government is practicing forestry in the lands 

 controlled by the Forest Service. Why should the states not 

 do the same thing with their sclwol and tax deed lands? In- 

 telligent care of timbered school land, selling the timber only 

 under regulations which will insure reforestation, would 

 realize as much today and in the long run pay a thousand per 

 cent in dividends for the education of our children and our 

 children's children. 



Further than this, there should be legislation to permit the 

 state to solidify its forest lands by exchange, when advisable, 

 and to authorize the purchase of cut-over lands. The eventual 

 profit in this is certain to be great, and nothing will do more 

 to interest the public and private owners in reforestation. It 

 is the history of all countries that forests are peculiarly 

 profitable state property, especially when, as is the case with 

 us, it can be acquired cheaply. It is a sound and well-proved 

 policy that it is well for the state to own lands which are 



