FIFTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 361 



demonstration of fire protection and of conservative lumbering, its experimental 

 and educational work, and its stimulus to our educational institutions to train 

 and turn out a large body of foresters, which created the present wide interest 

 in forestry and brought the efforts of other agencies into successful pla)'. I 

 do not mean in any way to overlook the splendid work of certain individual 

 States like Pennsylvania and New York, which dates back many years. But 

 that was localized in a few States. It required the Nation itself to set in motion 

 a national movement. The national work will always be the backbone of 

 American forestry, not trenching on or interfering with State work or individual 

 efforts but serving as a demonstration of forest management on its own lands, 

 a center of leadership, cooperation and assistance to State and private work, a 

 means to handle interstate problems and coordinate the work of neighboring 

 States, a guarantee that national needs which individual States can not meet will 

 be provided for on a national scale. 



Underlying the forestry problem are two fundamental considerations which 

 should be emphasized and reiterated until thoroughly driven home. One is the 

 public character of forestry. The public has a peculiar interest in the benefits 

 of forestry. Both in the matter of a continued supply of forest products and 

 in that of the conservation of water resources the public welfare is at stake. 

 In each case purposes vital to the prosperity of ,the country can be accomplished 

 only with the direct participation of the public. Private owners will secure 

 results only on a limited scale in the long run on their own initiative. It takes 

 too long, 50 to 200 years, to grow a crop of timber trees. Most private owners 

 in face of fire risk, bad tax laws, and uncertain future markets will not make 

 the necessary investments. Most lumbermen have bought their lands either to 

 log or to speculate in the standing timber, not to grow trees for later generations. 

 Nor will private owners make investments for general public benefits, as in 

 watershed protection. If the public is to secure the benefits of forestry it must 

 take the measures necessary to guarantee these results, and it must bear the cost 

 of what it receives. 



Closely related to the fact that forestry is in many aspects a public problem 

 is the second of the fundamental considerations I wish to emphasize. Forestry 

 requires stability of administrative policy and such permanence of ownership 

 as well ensure it. Herein lies the difficulty of private forestry on a large scale. 

 Timberland owners are interested in the protection of their standing timber merely 

 as insurance. Most of them are not interested in forest production, or in protect- 

 ing cut-over lands if that involves substantial annual charges and is not necessary 

 in order to protect their remaining standing timber. As yet the problem of 

 cut-over private lands is unsolved. It is now devolving on the State to aid in 

 their protection from fire in the interest of its own citizens. It will require the 

 utmost resources of State and Federal Government together to handle this prob- 

 lem of getting reasonable protection of private forests and permanent production 

 of timber on cut-over lands. Stability of policy and permanence of ownership 

 are essential to any successful attack on this great conservation problem. 



