102 The Forest Products Laboratory 



itself and its specific work from its director, iNIr. AVinslow. So, if I 

 interpret rightly the subject assigned to me, I am expected to sand- 

 Avich. as it were, ])etween tliese two vivid and interesting stories a little 

 of what might perhaps be called "highbrow stuff", a little of that sort 

 of talk w^hich is supposed to belong to the traditional university. 



When Governor Philipp was telling us the story of lumber, he 

 spoke of the indift'erence of the last generation to the situation wdth 

 which we are now confronted. It is easy for us now to see that our 

 parents w^ere blind to conditions which the future was sure to bring. 

 I do not believe that we should criticize them too severely for this 

 blindness, for I suppose that our descendants, fifty or a hundred years 

 hence, will look back to us and will w^onder at our blindness just as 

 w^e wonder at the ignorance of our fore-fathers. However blind they 

 may have been, they w^ere not without excuse, for the conditions under 

 which they lived were ^vholly new in the history of the world. Xo pre- 

 ceding century ever saw a growth of population in the least compara- 

 ble with that of the 19th century in Western Europe, and especially 

 in oiu" own country. And still more, no preceding century saw that 

 rapid increase of drafts on natural resources which was characteristic 

 of the 19th century, and especially of its later years. If, therefore, 

 our fathers did not foresee the future, it was because the story of the 

 past by which alone they could conjecture the conditions of the future, 

 did not enable them to foresee them ; and we ought, therefore, not to 

 blame them for ignorance. We, however, are in a totally different 

 position, and if w^e do not foresee and provide for the future it will not 

 be because of ignorance, but because of indifference and slothfulness. 



In our use of forest products Ave have lieen drawing on the balance 

 of resources which has accumulated during the remote past. We can 

 now see very plainly that in no long time this balance will be exhausted, 

 and that if we draw a check on nature's l)ank, it will be returned to us 

 promptly marked "No funds". The western world has never been in 

 this situation ])efore. It is a wholly new thing that a great peoj^le like 

 ours should be face to face wdth the situation that it must depend for 

 its supply of wood upon the annual growth. It is a new^ thing that a 

 people should be placed in a position where the annual growth of tim- 

 ber wall be the substantial limit of the amount which that people 

 can use. 



