2 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



may, for a while at least, preserve possible, sources 

 of profit from mismanagement, usually by mere 

 non-jise,- much more rarely by conscious manage- 

 ment for continuity. In most cases it will be 

 found that the bus y competition o f _the present 

 has a de s.truct ij^e_t£nda&cy and leads to wasteful 

 rttethods, especially if the resources are large in 

 comparison with the po pulation and its needs. 

 Density of population is the index of the i ntenal y 

 with which resources_will be husbanded. Plenty 

 breeds extravagance; dearth breeds care. 



Thus in the United States, with its enormous 

 resQurces^infields and forests and mines, which 

 are open to the unrestricted, licentious use of a 

 comggxatively^small population, the destruction of 

 valuable material liTtHe exploitation of these nat- 

 ural riches, the careless and extravagant use of 

 them, the neglect to which they are abandoned as 

 soon as the cream is taken, are simply characteris- 

 tic of all pioneering populations. With us, more- 

 over, the pioneering stage fell into a period when 

 the invention and development of railroad trans- 

 portation intensified the disgroportion qf_2opula- 

 tioTi and resources, opening up new territory and 

 making virgin supplies available more rapidly than 

 the needs of a resident population required, thus 

 creating destructive competition in the attempts to 

 profit from a non-intensive, rapacious exploitation 

 and exportation. For, in the absencepf-a- resident 

 popylation to use the less valuable portions of the 



