American Forest Congress 145 



not to be so, that American manufacturers of lumber 

 and cooperage stock are, as a rule, looking no farther 

 ahead than the length of their own lives, or their own 

 active business careers, as far as the consumption of 

 timber is concerned. The manufacturer of timber 

 reasons in a truly American way, "Let me get the 

 timber ofif and convert it into cash. That's my job. 

 I reckon my descendants will be better off with the 

 cash than with the timber, and I'm not looking out for 

 the other fellow's descendants." 



This is a natural, and, under conditions prevailing 

 up to the present time in this country, an inevitable 

 process of reasoning, and the result has been the 

 astounding depletion of our forests which has taken 

 place mainly in the last fifty years. How are we going 

 to induce the manufacturer to look at this thing differ- 

 ently, as long as his timber holds out? This, as I see 

 it, is the chief job which we have before us to-day. 



There is, I am pleased to say, one extensive coop- 

 erage stock manufacturing concern which is now 

 lumbering a forest extending over about 15,000 acres, 

 on scientific principles, cutting each year only those 

 trees which may be considered to have attained their 

 growth, commercially speaking. The concern alluded 

 to calculates that it will be able to lumber this tract 

 indefinitely, for an untold number of years to come, 

 by the steady application of this principle. It is the 

 fact, however, that few great tracts suitable for the 

 manufacture of cooperage stock now remain to be 

 handled in this way, except in the south and on the 

 Pacific coast. Most manufacturers are working from 

 comparatively small tracts, from which they feel 

 obliged to cut all the timber they can use, whether the 

 same has or has not attained full growth. 



There is one fact which seems to me generally en- 



