September 8, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



329 



come waning resources when increased pop- 

 ulation and industrial development make 

 their need even more important than at 

 the present time. 



Four fifths of all the forests of the coun- 

 try are still in private holdings. They are 

 in small holdings attached to farms or in 

 larger holding in non-agricultural regions. 

 The larger holdings contain more than 

 three fifths of all the merchantable timber 

 in the entire country. They are in the pos- 

 session of individuals or corporations thai: 

 have consolidated and brought together 

 these large holdings in comparatively re- 

 cent years, often at a large initial cost. 

 This enormous body of virgin timber, be- 

 cause of the large carrying charges for in- 

 terest, taxes and protection, must, from 

 necessity, be forced on the market as 

 rapidly as possible. This accounts for the 

 small increase in stumpage values during 

 recent years. 



The quantity of standing timber in the 

 hands of private owners is so large, the 

 competition for a market is so keen, and 

 the necessity for cutting is so imperative 

 there is little likelihood for a marked 

 advance in stumpage for many years to 

 come. The inevitable result of this con- 

 dition is the utter inability of the owners of 

 more than three fifths of the merchantable 

 timber to cut their stumpage in a manner 

 that will insure a satisfactory second crop. 

 The practise of forestry necessarily carries 

 with it present expenditures far beyond 

 those incurred in forest exploitation with- 

 out regard for future crops. Only a small 

 percentage of the private forests in the 

 United States are so favorably located in 

 reference to market that the value of all 

 classes of stumpage is sufficiently high to 

 make thinnings, reproduction cuttings, 

 plantings and other operations concerned 

 with the production of the crop profitable. 

 For this reason forestry is not practised by 



private owners of timberland except on 

 woodlots in strictly agricultural regions 

 and in restricted areas of New England 

 and elsewhere where there is an excellent 

 local market for all classes of forest 

 products. 



Although, in most cases, the private 

 owner can ill afford the present expendi- 

 tures necessary to insure future crops and 

 will not make them, the public can well 

 afford to make such expenditures, and ex- 

 perience shows that they do make them. 

 Thus, the administration of the national 

 forests is spending on them nearly twice 

 the present annual receipts. The public can 

 well afford to make present expenditures in 

 order to insure future crops of timber 'be- 

 cause it is not only recompensed from the 

 timber produced, but also by the indirect 

 value of the forest to the entire community. 

 We should clearly appreciate the following 

 fundamental truth. It is the indirect value 

 of the forest which accrues to the public at 

 large that makes the practise of forestry 

 economically possible by the public bsfore 

 it is possible by the private individaul. 

 The public can and should practise for- 

 estry, while the private individual seldom 

 can economically, and will not. I, there- 

 fore, affirm that the practise of forestry in 

 the United States really began with the 

 creation of public forests. Its progress will 

 be measured by the increase in area of such 

 forests and the rapidity with which they 

 are organized and orderly developed. 



With this brief outline of our advance 

 toward forest conservation, I now direct 

 your attention to the intimate relation that 

 forestry education bears to it. Forestry 

 education was the fountain head from 

 which sprang the beginnings of forestry in 

 this country. Forestry education is the 

 source from which flows all progress in 

 forestry. It shapes and directs our forest 

 policy and determines our methods of prac- 



