220 GOVERNMENT REGULATION AND WORKING PLANS 



virgin areas of timber, distant from transportation, should be heavily cut 

 (as they may be) without first having a working plan to show how the 

 removal of the over-mature timber will merge into the desired forest 

 management. 



There is a striking analogy between the early crude regulation in 

 the Vosges and the 1905-1918 "regulation" on some of our National 

 Forests where the yield area unit or working group may correspond to 

 the area required to supply one or more sawmills. In the Vosges "how- 

 ever numerous were the sawmills, they touched only a small portion of 

 the immense stand." The excess of supply over demand unquestion- 

 ably saved these Vosges forests just as our early logging of only a small 

 portion of the stand on private forests, because the rest was unmerchant- 

 able, saved large areas from total destruction. But with a more in- 

 tensive market these conditions have changed ; everything — even small 

 trees — are merchantable, so we must look to the future. Until 1919 

 on our National Forests the great danger was that real mandatory 

 (obligatory) regulation ^^ was not generally in effect. From 1905 until 

 about 1918 the administrator has been more powerful than the working 

 plan expert, because the expert has not formulated a practical plan — 

 something exceedingly cUfficult because of changing conditions, unstabil- 

 ized and unforeseen local demands, and economic factors which dictate 

 the export of all good grades of lumber to far distant regions. Even 

 with obligatory regulation recognized as a necessity there is danger 

 in making sales for 8 to 10 years. With long-term sales and sales for 

 enormous amounts to one company, as have been planned and made in 

 a few instances, the tendency is to sell immense tracts and thus to bind 

 the local forester to an economic lumberman's policy for years to come. 

 Because of the frailty of human foresight, these contracts which bind 

 the Forest Service to a long continued economic exploitation are prob- 

 ably unwise. This means that an administration in 1910 may blindly 

 bind the administration in 1930 to a policy of overcutting a locality 

 in the West. The administrator of 1925 may want to build a privately- 

 owned railroad as a separate enterprise and sell in small amounts. 

 This he could not do because perhaps ten or fifteen townships in ques- 

 tion had been sold to a great lumber corporation on a 20-year sale; 

 once the investment is made can further sales be refused without hard- 

 ship on the operator even if his plant has been amortised in the mean- 

 time? Shall a local forest industry be wiped out? I believe such a 

 situation is almost unique in the history of our Government. These 

 big sales are justified by the necessity of selling overmature timber which 



15 Since this was written it is understood that the Forest Service has begun the study 

 of regulation in earnest and that long-term sales are to be largely confined to Alaska. 

 It is hoped that the change in policy will be effective — but the lesson holds good. 



