CHAPTER XIX 



The Great God Competition 



How competition hinders commercial forestry de- 

 velopments; the remedies at hand. 



One of the greatest obstacles to the practice of 

 conservative lumbering and reforestation lies in the 

 restriction placed upon operating expenditure, a 

 restriction directly due to competition. In spite of 

 a great deal of talk and propaganda designed to 

 spread a contrary opinion, both the lumber and 

 paper industries are highly competitive, and as a 

 whole they are no more profitable than any other 

 business requiring equal ingenuity and similar risk. 

 Past Investigations of a so-called "lumber trust" 

 have, on this point, rendered a clear decision. When 

 general business is good, then people have money 

 to build homes and factories, the railroads buy cars 

 and ties, put In new bridges, etc., telegraph and 

 telephone companies extend their facilities, and the 

 stimulation of commerce requires more paper and 

 more boxes and crates for shipping goods. At such 

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