166 NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 



Countries of Europe have that policy established. Great areas of forest lanch 

 are owned by the State or by Cities and Towns, and those tracts are managed 

 by men of thorough professional training. The objects of that policy are 

 threefold : 1st, revenue ; 2nd, the production of the raw material of industry; 

 and 3rd, the securing of those beneficial influences on climate, water flow and 

 the fertility of soil which bodies of forest land scattered through a country are 

 believed to render. This policy is maintained, not as a matter of sentiment, 

 though sentiment approves it, but as a matter of clear public utility, because 

 every informed man knows that the maintenance of some such system is funda- 

 mental to his Country's prosperity. Along with it goes some kind of super- 

 vision exercised in the name of the State over the handling of privately- 

 owned forests. 



Forestry affairs in the United States present a very mixed appearance.. 

 There are no town or city forests. Most of our States, years ago, 

 parted with their Public Lands ; and only a few have adopted the 

 now slow and costly policy of securing state forest reservations. In the case 

 of the great areas of land owned by the general Government in the 

 West, the situation was more hospitable. There, after long agitation, 

 the policy of retention of ownership was adopted some ten years ago, and 

 to date about 120,000,000 acres of permanent forest reserves have 

 been proclaimed. The organization to manage that vast area is just now in 

 process of formation. At the head of it are a few bureau chiefs at Washing- 

 ton, a group of highly - trained young men, under the leadership of Giffbrd 

 Pinchot, head of the whole U. S. Forest Service. The force on the ground 

 consists of a mixture of Western woodsmen, brought wp in the country, and 

 familiar with its conditions ; a considerable number of technically - trained 

 men, graduates of Yale, and the other Forest Schools that have "sprung up. 

 through the Country. These two classes of men, the practical man so-calledr 

 and the man of special and theoretical training, are out there on the ground 

 now, co - operating in the work of present administration, and competing 

 freely, on the basis of actual proved efficiency, for mastery and leadership in 

 the future. The work there is plain and business-like- It consists of protec- 

 tion from fire and plunder, of the sale of timber, of such regulation of cutting 

 and other operations as will tend to the maintenance of the productive power 

 of the lands. 



As for privately owned lands in the United States there is little or no exer- 

 cise by public agencies over their management. This is recognised to be a very 

 difficult matter to handle. Ther j is, however, a great volume of educational 



