106 AN AUSTRALIAN STUDY OF AMERICAN FORESTRY. 
The Queensland timber sale policy is virtually identical with that of the 
United States of America. It is a policy which must be copied eventually by 
all the Australian States, and not only because it ensures the receipt of the 
true stumpage value, but because it avoids the dangers of competitive exploita- 
tion, and furnishes a sure basis for the further extension of systematic forestry. 
Under the licensing systems of most Australian States, timber-getters 
armed with a half-crown license may prospect any bush and contest with other 
forest freebooters the possession of the forest loot. The system has been 
responsible for tremendous wastage of the timber resource, and while it lasts, 
effective management is impossible. Like that of the United States of 
America, the Queensland timber sale policy awards to the purchaser at public 
auction the sole right of logging on a defined lot, for the conduct of the 
‘operations on which the holder is responsible. It is a simple system, rendering 
supervision easy and making possible the natural extension of the functions 
of forestry. It avoids also the necessity for an interminable code of regulatiqns 
such as too often characterises the forest administration of other Australian 
States. 
The New South Wales exclusive-right idea represents the clumsy patching 
up of the licensing method into the semblance of such a scheme. It gave 
to the holder a fifteen years’ monopoly of 10,000 acres of then more or less 
inaccessible timberland, at the prevailing uniform royalty. It provided for 
no revision of conditions, and virtually took from the forester for the term 
of the right, all possibilities of instituting silvicultural treatment or of 
obtaining true stumpage values. So little amenable is it to forestry control 
that any alteration of a cutting condition involves alteration at the hands of 
Parliament of the whole code of regulations! 
Further patching has produced the special license idea which is much 
less objectionable because of the greater power of control, although the 
maximum term of fifteen years is likely to hamper management. 
Certainly, a reasonable operating life should be guaranteed established 
milling plants, in order to stabilise the industry and make both for higher 
stumpage values and lower selling prices to the consumer. Long term rights, 
however, are not merely monopolistic, but a virtual deliverance of forest 
practice into the hands of the enemy. A reasonable operating life may 
best be safeguarded by the establishment of the principle of the sustained 
yield, and the making of annual or semi-annual sales up to the limits thereof. 
Such a policy would remove the danger of monopoly, whilst avoiding the 
undesirable multiplication of small and temporary milling plants, working 
on a “ boom and bust” principle. 
The short-term sale of defined timber lots furnishes a convenient basis 
for the extension of silviculture. Could the Australian forester take over 
forthwith the whole work of exploitation in addition to that of thinning, he 
would be in a position at once to apply the results of his experience. But 
there are other interests to be considered besides those of pure forestry, and 
the timber trade has a big say—too big, very often—with regard to the job 
of logging. Evolution will place the forester in actual control eventually, 
but, until then, other means must be employed to bring about the intro- 
duction of elementary forest practice. The crude expedient of minimum girths 
has been the mainstay of Australian forestry in the past, and it has served a 
useful purpose. It is entirely inadequate, however, to meet the requirements 
of applied silviculture, and must go. In its stead should be erected the principle 
of marking the trees to be felled. The acceptance of that principle would 
place in the hands of the forester an instrument wherewith to shape the 
destinies of his charge along the lines opened up to him by his previous 
experiment and research. It would make practicable an instant advance into 
the realms of applied forestry. 
