102 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



1. Forests grow to be used. Beware of the sentimentalists who would try to 

 make you believe differently. Wood is a necessity of civilized life, and both lum- 

 bermen and foresters are in the same business of supplying wood materials. Only 

 there is a difference in the manner of their use, namely, destructive and conservative 

 use, the latter providing for perpetual supplies, for future needs. 



2. Not all forest growth is desirable and to be maintained. Wherever agricul- 

 tural soil is covered by it, eventually the forest must be removed. But beware of 

 classing as farm soils those which are too thin to stand the drain which farm crops 

 make on it and those which are wasted easily when cleared. These must be kept 

 under forest cover perpetually. 



3. In the virgin forest there is practically no growth. The virgin forest, as 

 far as production is concerned, is at a standstill, it neither grows more nor less, 

 for whatever grows in it is offset by decay it is a dead capital, the maintenance of 

 the investment eating up the interest. To make it a live capital which by its 

 annual growth accumulates interest, in order to reproduce a new crop, the axe is 

 needed to remove the overmature old stand and give light and room for a vigorous 

 growth of the young. 



But there is no one method which is the best, as for instance cutting to a 

 certain diameter limit. This is merely a device to rob the forest less; it may or 

 it may not lead to forest perpetuation. There are various methods known to the 

 technically educated forester which accomplish the result, namely a vigorou 8 

 young crop, to be chosen according to varying conditions. 



4. Forests are self -perpetuating. As long as the fire is kept out forests may 

 be cut and will reproduce themselves even without the assistance of man, and so 

 far as a mere soil cover is concerned, Nature will provide it. But from the economic 

 point of view the reproduction may not be satisfactory, for Nature does not take 

 into account time and the requirements of man; she produces weed trees as readily 

 as valuable kinds, and cares not whether the best product in the shortest time is 

 secured, and hence my fifth tenet: 



5. The forester is- needed to direct the work of Nature. The virgin woods are 

 mostly composed of a mixture of economically valuable and of weed trees. Culling 

 the valuable and leaving the weed trees in possession can have only one effect, name- 

 ly, to reproduce the latter in larger number, and, therefore, to make a poorer forest 

 than it was before, hence the lumberman who necessarily works for the present 

 dollar without an eye to the future, and takes out only the valuable kinds, is bound 

 to deteriorate the value of the future forest. The forester may decrease this deter- 

 ioration by the manner in which he cuts the old crop, or by proper methods he can 

 also secure a superior new crop. 



6. Forest crops are slow crops. Even under best management it takes in our 



