IS FORESTRY PRACTICABLE IN THE 

 NORTHEAST? 



BY 

 JOHN A. DIX 



President Moose Eiver Lumber Company, of New York 



""THE first Americans were not skilled in the art of 

 husbandry ; they considered the forest only as the 

 means of providing food and raiment, and in their 

 minds the value of the trees was measured by the 

 protection to wild animals which provided food or 

 the skins of which entered into the economy and neces- 

 sities of existence. An occasional and convenient piece 

 of wood gave warmth or served as a means of prepar- 

 ing food. 



It is fair to presume that the advent of the Pilgrim 

 Fathers and by them the immediate removal of the 

 forests to enable them to till the soil and reap the 

 results donated by years of timber growth, caused the 

 natives to look upon the new order of things with 

 disapproval. The forests readily yielded to the axe 

 of the pioneer; trees only impeded the progress and 

 advance of settlements. A small percentage of the 

 timber was converted into structures for homes and 

 into stockades for protection, but the greater portion 

 of the forests yielded to fire and was consumed as 

 waste. From this beginning the consumption of the 

 forests has been unremitting without consideration 

 of a future supply. We hear occasionally that timber 

 is getting "farther back" and more expensive, but as 

 soon as the demand is keen the means of penetrating 

 to the supply do not deter the lumbermen from obtain- 

 ing the trees. 



Only recently the saw mills have deemed it import- 



