Saving the Forests 



S^^ 



stocked young pine forest coming on 

 to taice the place of wliat was cut off. 



The situation is so plain now that he 

 who runs — or rides in the Pullman — may 

 read. But had it been necessary to wait 

 until the facts themselves spoke clear to 

 the public understanding, the time for 

 effective action in the West would have 

 passed. Sooner or later the logic of 

 events was bound to point out the right 

 path, but it would have led up to a 

 closed door. There is almost no good 

 timber outside of the national forests 

 which has not passed into private owner- 

 ship. Would-be locators under the tim- 

 ber and stone act in the far northwest are 

 now hunting down and filing on forty- 

 acre lots^a thing hitherto unheard of. 

 Had the making of reserves been de- 

 ferred until now, there would be little 

 of value left to reserve. 



That the lumber industry, now one 

 of the chief industries of the West, must 

 perish with the exhaustion of the timber 

 supply needs no argument ; and private 

 lumbering in the West is making virtually 

 no attempt to prevent exhaustion by the 

 use of methods to secure a future timber 

 crop from cut-over lands. But the eco- 

 nomic importance of the forests is far 

 more fundamental than merely the sup- 

 port of the lumber industry, or even the 

 supply of building material, to say noth- 

 ing of material for the various wood- 

 working industries. Houses can be made 

 of brick, stone, concrete, and iron, but not 

 mine props, nor even railroad ties, with 

 any practical success, as yet, at least. If 

 fire and the ax (or the saw, to be more 

 exact, since the lumberman cannot now 

 usually afford to waste good sawlog ma- 

 terial in chips) were allowed to continue 

 their work uncontrolled by government 

 action, future mining development would 

 begin to face an obstacle which would 

 grow increasingly difficult to overcome. 

 It is not too much to say that forest pres- 

 ervation in such regions as the Black 

 Hills and the Montana copper district is 

 of vital moment for the future of the 

 mines. Somes of the great railroad sys- 

 tems of the West are already drawing 



heavily upon the national forests for ties. 

 The supply of fence-posts for the farmer 

 is a smaller, yet important, function of 

 the forest. 



THE USE OE THE NATIONAL FORESTS 



As yet, however, the use of the national 

 forests as sources of timber supply has 

 hardly begun. In most regions there is 

 still plenty of uncut timber in the hands 

 of private owners. It would be the 

 height of unwisdom for the government 

 to enter into competition with this tim- 

 ber for the market, so long as the pub- 

 lic can obtain it at a reasonable price, 

 when a future demand is certain. Un- 

 doubtedly the day will come when the 

 necessities of the public will put great 

 pressure upon the national forest admin- 

 istration to sell the timber faster than 

 it will grow, and it remains to be seen 

 whether under these conditions it will 

 be possible to prevent overconsumption. 

 For the present, however, the fact that 

 the national forests are still largely sur- 

 rounded by more accessible timber be- 

 longing to private owners prevents their 

 extensive utilization. In a sense, this in- 

 volves a loss for the time being of their 

 productive power ; for unless mature tim- 

 ber is cut, production is at a standstill, 

 growth merely balancing decay, whereas 

 a well-managed forest is never idle, but 

 always increasing in volume of timber 

 up to the time of harvest. Yet the tim- 

 ber in the national forests is steadily in- 

 creasing in value, even if not in quan- 

 tity, from the rise in lumber prices ; and 

 this means that its capacity for public 

 usefulness is increasing also. 



Essentially the national forests should 

 be thought of as undeveloped property 

 of great potential value, but needing also 

 large expenditures on capital account be- 

 fore their productive power can be fully 

 utilized. Eiificient forest management — 

 or, in other words, working a forest for 

 all it is worth — requires, for one thing, 

 good means of transportation. With a 

 well-planned system of permanent roads, 

 logging can be carried on in whatever 

 part of the forest is most ready for it. 



