22 PKACTICAL FORESTRY. 



can methods in Germany. What American foresters should do and 

 are doing is to combine the general principles of forestry, which are 

 true all the world over, with American methods of lumbering. The 

 product will be a system of forestry especially adapted to the United 

 States. The foundations of such a system are already laid. 



CONSERVATIVE LUMBERING. 



Something was said in the last chapter about the systematic 

 methods of conservative lumbering. With the gradual imderstand- 

 ing and application of these methods by American lumbermen, 

 already well begun, and with the work in the woods rightly carried 

 out, there is but one reason why the great majority of the forests now 

 standing in the United States should not in the end be lumbered 

 steadily and systematically, or why they should fail to yield a steadily 

 increasing return. That reason is the rapid destruction of the forests 

 themselves. There is grave danger that the best of our forests will 

 all be gone before their protection and perpetuation by wise use can 

 be begun. The spread of a working knowledge of practical forestry 

 is likely to be too slow. 



Conservative lumbering and ordinary lumbering. — Conservative 

 lumbering is distinguished from ordinary lumbering in three ways: 



First. The forest is treated as a working capital whose purpose 

 is to produce successive crops. 



Second. With that purpose in view, a working plaii is prepared 

 and followed in harvesting the forest crop. 



Third. The work in the woods is carried on in such a way as to 

 leave the standing trees and the young growth as nearly unharmed 

 by the lumbering as possible-. 



A forest working plan is intended to give all the information 

 needed to decide upon and carry out the best business policy in 

 handling and perpetuating a forest. It gives this information in 

 the form of a written statement, which covers some or all of the 

 following topics: It shows the present stand and condition of the 

 forest, and gives rules for the selection and marking of trees to be cut, 

 for making the reproduction sure, and for the protection of young 

 and old standing trees during the logging. The working plan also 

 predicts the future yield of the forest, basing its prediction on careful 

 measurements which show how many standing trees of different 

 diameters will be left per acre after the first cutting, and how fast 

 these young trees grow. Finally, it estimates the future return in 

 money, taking into account the taxes, interest, and other expenses 

 on one side and the future crop on the other. In order to make 

 this estimate entirely safe it is usually based on the present price 

 of stumpage, although its future value will certainly be much higher. 



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