44 MAN ON THE LANDSCAPE 



C. H. Guise says that of the large, most valuable trees we cut at 

 five times the rate of growth and that the virgin forest will last only 

 30 to 40 years at the present rate. He adds the thought that as this 

 high grade lumber becomes scarcer, the price will go up, the market 

 will shrink, and the tree supply will last longer. This is another way 

 of saying that most of us will have to do without some of the lumber 

 products we need. Guise further warns that when the virgin forest 

 is gone there will be a tedious period of waiting before the second 

 growth forests will be able to supply the market at all well. 5 



From the simple standpoint of wood supply, without considering 

 all the other functions of forests and woodlots in the scheme of 

 nature, it is obvious that we do not have, and will not have for a 

 long time, enough trees. There are about 100,000,000 acres of wood- 

 land which have been cut over or burned over that are not restock- 

 ing themselves at all. Professional foresters say that woodland 

 under good management will produce from two to six times as much 

 good timber as unmanaged areas. This raises the question of for- 

 estry science and what it can do about the situation. 



Role of the Forester. Four hundred years ago Europe began to 

 see the need of planning for wood supply. At that time cities held 

 only a minor fraction of the total population, yet the widely forested 

 areas of the continent had slowly given way to farms and to fuel 

 needs, to a point where practical intelligence was brought face to 

 face with a demand for sustained wood supply. The leisurely develop- 

 ment of Western Civilization in Europe was geared to nature in a 

 way that we in the United States have never experienced, and for 

 which we are only now beginning to feel a need. We have been so pre- 

 occupied with profits that the scientific road to a production and con- 

 sumption balanced against a sustainable raw material supply has been 

 ignored. We are now forced to choose between a continuance of 

 exploitation and the scientific road to a stable and possibly a rising 

 living standard. If exploitation continues, the standard of living 

 must inevitably go into a decline, such as the shortages during and 

 following World War II previewed for us. 



The science of forestry as developed in Europe made that area 

 self-sustaining in timber at least up until World War II. Just before 

 the turn of the century a pioneer American forester, Gifford Pinchot, 

 found it necessary to go to Europe to gain a training foundation in 

 forest science. He became the first official U. S. Forester. Since 

 that recent date we have been busy adapting continental technics to 

 our problems and evolving our own methods. At the moment a war 

 is on between short-term economics and long-term science as to the 

 fate of American forests and woodlots. Private owners are lined 

 up against public owners. Independent scientists and economists 

 must conciliate the dispute on the basis of what is best for our so- 

 ciety as a whole. An educated public must enforce the decision. 



5 Gustafson, et al, Conservation in the United States, Comstock Publishing Co., 

 Ithaca, N. Y., 1940, p. 185. 



