NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 81 



This assumes that the timber from these reserves will be cut as 

 it reaches maturity. It is needed and must be used. But we may re- 

 member this, that the mature timber can be cut and the forest be in 

 no wise injured in its protective, scenic, or sanitary value. This is the 

 advantage of forestry over lumbering. 



OBJECTIONS. 



As with all national movements, objections have been raised against 

 government forests in the Appalachians. Fortunately, these objections 

 can be met. Some of them are as follows : 



1. The government would have to buy the land. 



This is true. The title to the land has passed to private hands. 

 Unlike the case of the western national forests, the government would 

 have to buy and pay for the land before it can take it under control. 

 But the money would not be lost. It would begin to come back in a 

 few years, just as the money comes back which the government invests 

 in the irrigation of western lands. Timber land is so sure an invest- 

 ment, that the government stands to gain rather than lose in the un- 

 dertaking. Had it purchased these lands eight years ago, when the 

 matter was first pressed, its profits already would have amounted to 

 millions. 



2. Such an undertaking would lead to endless expenditure on 

 account of the vast areas to be purchased. 



The Forest Service is covering this point in its present investiga- 

 tion and will report to Congress next winter the extent of the lands 

 which should be purchased. Congress will then be able to see the size 

 of the undertaking before it begins it. 



3. It is a problem for the several states, not the Federal Gov- 

 ernment. 



So far as the forests are necessary to insure the timber supply, 

 it is by no means a state problem. It is incumbent upon no state to 

 provide a timber supply for the rest of the country. So far as the 

 forests are necessary to protect the watersheds of interstate streams, 

 it is not a state but a federal problem. By no sort of logic can it be 

 established that North Carolina must protect the headwaters of the 

 Yadkin and Catawba Rivers because the water powers of South Caro- 

 lina are being damaged, nor that West Virginia must protect the 

 Monongahela because Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky suffer on ac- 

 count of the floods which arise on its denuded watersheds. Practically 

 all the important Appalachian streams are interstate streams. Both 

 from the standpoint of timber supply and stream protection, the situa- 

 tion is one which distinctly calls for federal action. 



4. Appropriations for this purpose will open the door to fraud. 



In the light of the government's experience with its present com- 

 mercial operations, this objection cannot be supported. The govern- 

 ment to-day through its own employees is conducting far larger enter- 

 prises without the slightest trace of corruption, indeed in the settled 

 conviction that it is thereby pursuing the most economical course. 



