IMPENDING CATASTROPHE 95 



portation charges. Those miniature forests are not 

 there for beauty alone but as the basis of the na- 

 tion's wood supply. They are there because two 

 hundred years of practical experience has proved 

 that their maintenance is in dollars and cents, or 

 francs and centimes, a profitable investment. In- 

 deed, one may actually find towns whose inhabitants 

 have not for years paid one cent in taxes because the 

 communal forest revenue has been sufficient to meet 

 all public charges. The known vagaries of political 

 administrations might cast some doubt upon these 

 reports of great success and generous profits, but 

 when we find private corporations also owning 

 forests and perpetually maintaining them at a com- 

 fortable profit, as is the case in France, Germany, 

 Switzerland, Norway and Sweden, we must recog- 

 nize that the matter is worth investigating. I my- 

 self have never visited one of these propositions 

 without thinking of our own clubs and private pre- 

 serves of the Adirondacks, the Catskills, and the 

 White Mountains, and of the great potential wealth 

 that might some day be there developed. 



The whole forest policy of European nations 

 rests upon one basic principle. Every time they cut 

 a tree they take care that another shall grow in its 

 place. In actual practice this is most often accom- 

 plished by the logging of selected specimens pre- 



