362 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



pounded annually for fifty years at 6 per cent, would amount to a 

 very large sum, in all probability much more than the stumpage would 

 then be worth. One writer on the subject has termed tree planting 

 "a risky 6 per cent investment."*" 



Thus the results" of private ownership of timber lands, as illus- 

 trated in the condition of the lumber industry, have been unsatis- 

 factory from every point of view. Consumers have suffered little from 

 high prices, but have viewed with distrust the repeated efforts on the 

 part of lumbermen to force an artificial level of prices. Lumbermen 

 themselves have not profited generally, and have often suffered 

 severely from the instability of conditions within the industry ; while 

 the public can only view with foreboding the gross waste in lumbering 

 operations, and the failure of those within the industry to provide 

 for its future maintenance. 



THE QUESTION OF REMEDIES 



The question of remedies to be adopted will hinge largely on the 

 question as to which of the difficulties suggested is deemed most im- 

 portant. If the principal difficulty is found in the efforts of the lumber- 

 men to fix prices, the question of an appropriate remedy will involve 

 mainly a consideration of trust regulation. For two reasons, however, 

 this aspect of the problem will not be considered here. In the first 

 place, the question of trust regulation is far too broad to be given 

 adequate attention within the scope of this volume ; and, in the second 

 place, since consumers have suffered little in the past, it seems that 

 the question of remedy may safely be left to the future, if it ever 

 becomes an acute problem. 



The unfortunate situation of some of the lumbermen during a large 

 part of the past decade seemed to demand more attention than it 

 ever got ; and a few years ago the Forest Service, in cooperation with 

 the Bureau of Corporations, and later with the Trade Commission, 

 undertook a study of conditions. Their report,^*^ completed in 1916, 

 called attention to the depressed situation of the lumbermen, and 



49 Kellogg and Ziegler, "The Cost of Growing Timber," Pub. by Am. Lumber- 

 man, 1911. 



50 "Some Public and Economic Aspects of the Lumber Industry" : Report No. 

 114, Dept. of Agr. 



