RESULTS OF OUR FOREST POLICY 333 



harvesting, but rather to speculation. When the timbermen of the 

 Lake states and farther east found their supplies of stumpage dis- 

 appearing, they looked about for places to invest the large amounts of 

 capital which they had accumulated. The forests of the South and 

 West presented attractive fields for investment, and some of these 

 timbermen bought up tracts for speculation — tracts larger than any 

 considerations of efficiency or economy would have dictated. 



If the forests of the country are to be privately owned, perhaps it 

 is quite as well that they should be owned in large tracts ; yet this 

 concentration in ownership contains a threat of future monopolistic 

 control which cannot be ignored. 



I 



