396 REPORT OF THE FORESTRY COMMITTEE 



forest restoration would be advanced by the adoption of tax laws in line with 

 the suggestion of the Federal forest service, relieving from taxation areas de- 

 voted to the growing of trees and providing for taxation at the market value 

 when the crop shall be harvested. The best inducement that can be offered for 

 the production of any crop is the reasonable assurance that it will pay, and the 

 planter and cultivator of trees must have the same prospect of eventual profit as 

 that which stimulates to action the planter and cultivator of cotton or corn. 

 Individual effort in the line of forest preservation will aid, but will not accomplish 

 the desired result, by far the most important factor being the policy of the gov- 

 ernment, both Federal and State, as to the treatment of the public timbered lands. 

 The action of many States in establishing forest reserves is commendable and it 

 is eminently proper that the Federal reserves should include all vacant lands on 

 which there is any species of standing timber, and that the eventual cutting of 

 the trees should be done under supervision of men trained to the work of fores- 

 try, to the end that the ripe trees only shall be cut, and the smaller growth con- 

 served and permitted to grow to reasonable maturity. Travel through the forests 

 discloses the fact that nature is everywhere endeavoring to reproduce, and her 

 ■efforts in that direction would show greater results were it not for the ravages 

 of fire — the arch enemy of the forest. In the earlier logging a large percentage 

 of the timber was left in the woods, for the reason that the cost of delivering 

 low grade logs to the mill exceeded by far the value of the product. The oper- 

 ators were legion and without organization or cummunity of interest and in the 

 absence of Federal or State supervision, destructive fires were of frequent occur- 

 ence. The burning of old cuttings also destroyed in most instances the smaller 

 trees that had been left standing, and the new growth of all varieties of timber. 

 The system of fire patrols now in vogue in most timbered localities is giving good 

 results in the line of protection, and it is to be hoped that there will not be a 

 recurrence of the destructive forest fires of the past. Finally the forests have 

 no better friends than the lumbermen, and while the lumbermen will continue 

 to cut the trees, thereby supplying the material necessary to the country's needs, 

 they will constantly strive toward increased economy in cutting and decreased 

 waste and will support the practice of rational forestry, to the end that the full 

 wealth of the forests may be conserved and utilized in supplying the constantly 

 increasing demands of the constantly increasing population. 



