APPLICATION TO UNITED STATES 219 



they were pretty well over the whole region at the end of the 15th century. . . « 

 The sawmills, which belonged to the dukes and abbeys who had built them, were leased 

 with the stipulation that the number of trees that could be sawed would be furnished 

 each year. These trees were cut in the watershed where the sawmill was located . . . 

 or here and there. Thus there was a real selection felling, with the yield in number 

 of trees, fixed not by the productive capacity of the forest, but according to the out- 

 put of the sawmill . . . about 200 fir of average size per year. When the country 

 tributary to a sawmill was exhausted the forest was closed and the felling was transferred 

 to another area. Thus the Lorraine foresters obtained an exact idea of the relation 

 between the area of the forest and the number of trees which it could annually yield 

 without being depleted." 



Application. to United States. — The theoretical need of working plans 

 has been recognized by the U. S. Forest Service for the last ten years 

 but no systematic recording of management plans has yet been done 

 except on a very few Forests. As a result, a number of National Forest 

 divisions or working groups have possibly been overcut; later on this 

 may mean hardship to the local interests. Obligatory working plans are 

 needed to-day for all National Forest areas which are being intensively 

 logged. It is not enough to refuse to make sales because of fear of over- 

 cutting — there must be a definite scheme planned in advance. Other- 

 wise the Forests will unquestionably suffer. Such is the lesson from 

 France. And it is equally important to provide transportation to tap 

 virgin timber where literally millions of dollars of raw product is going to 

 waste every year, notwithstanding the timber famine which has been 

 predicted. 



We must, of course, recognize that we are in a transition period, and 

 when regulating virgin stands the excess growing stock must be reduced. 

 Moreover the practical conditions often make it appear advisable to 

 make very large sales so as to compete with offerings of private owners. 

 There are forests, like the Plumas, where some over-cutting is probably 

 necessary because the Forest Service owns but a small proportion of 

 the timber, the bulk being in private hands. In such case the choice 

 may be between (a) leaving islands of inaccessible uncut timber or 

 (b) overcutting. In such case (b) may be the lesser evil. But even ad- 

 mitting that our present rotations, cutting cycles (and even our silvicul- 

 tural practice) are transitory, yet, even then, obligatory regulation is 

 necessary for our public forests, for even the forester cannot be trusted to 

 cut by rule-of-thumb. This is doubly true where many of our officers 

 are not technically trained. Broad-gauge regulation does not signify 

 at once tying to a mean annual growth nor a strict academic sustained 

 annual yield — concessions must often be made to meet practical demands 

 — but let us have our regulation down in "black and white," in orderly 

 and systematic working plans. Such detailed plans are generally non- 

 existant, and yet are needed. It is open to argument whether even large 



