SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 25 



ing it to fire and vandal, but it is produced by care and protection. None of 

 the states mentioned spends less than 12.50 per acre each year on the forest 

 lands, so that Wurttemberg, for instance, expends on its 400,000 acres of state 

 forest over a million dollars, in order to secure the net income of over two mil- 

 lion dollars. 



In this way, comparatively poor lands are utiHzed, they are kept covered 

 and kept fertile, they are protected against washing and gullying and general 

 deterioration, and they are made to produce an income and pay and interest 

 such as is not secured from even much better lands by any other form of 

 agriculture. At the same time these forests have furnished a home supply 

 of timber at reasonable prices and thus assured comfort to the people. They 

 have done more, they have encouraged wood-consuming industries, have 

 justified the building of pulp and saw-mills, and various factories, for every- 

 one knows what the regular supply has been for a century and more and has 

 reasonable assurance that this supply will continue for indefinite time to 

 come. Nor has Germany too much forest, for even now the rapid develop- 

 ment of industry and commerce in all directions, the general rise in the 

 standards of living have so increased wood consumption that of late Germany 

 has been obliged to import some of its timber. 



As might be expected in the long fight against the forest in early times, 

 much land was cleared in Central Europe which was not really agricultural 

 land. Much of this was again abandoned, but much also was held and farmed 

 down to the present day. In districts of this kind many tracts became more 

 and more impoverishecl like the "run down farm" of New England and the 

 Atlantic coast, farming dwindled into a miserable form of stock raising, and 

 whole villages became half paupers, all the more enterprising of the popula- 

 tion leaving as soon as opportunity offered. For more than a century the 

 injury to the- state caused by these pauper and half pauper conditions has 

 been recognized. For more than fifty years efforts have been made to assist 

 these districts and generally it is found that reforestation of the poor lands 

 alone is of any permanent value. Generally the people are too poor and the 

 state and province must help, but where real effective work is to be accom- 

 plished it is necessary to buy up the lands and give the people a chance to find 

 better employment. Thousands of acres are thus bought up and reforested 

 every year by the German states, and similar work is going on in Austria, 

 Switzerland and France. The prices for such land, ranging generally from $10 

 to $25 per acre, seem high to an American, but it has been demonstrated that 

 even at this price the forest will pay better than agriculture. 



But just as the old time clearing extended to much real poor land, so the 

 forest retained many an acre of fairly good land, or at least land which, as 

 long as the forest carries on its regular cultivation and fertilization, has the 

 appearance of good agricultural land. For this and other reasons there was 

 no lack of protest against keeping so much land in forest, and up to recent time 

 sophistry and demagoguery combined to fight the forest policy of all the Cen- 

 tral European states. Especially through Adam Smith and the French revo- 

 lution the unlimited right of the individual in its property gained many cham- 

 pions. France, especially, lost a large part of its valuable forest holdings, so 

 that for the last fifty years she has found it necessary to spend many millions 

 of dollars to correct the bad results of denudation in her hill, mountain and 

 sand dune district. Nor is this all. She paid a heavy fine every year in 

 form of a large sum spent in the import of lumber and timber which she might 

 have raised at home. 



But in spite of all sophistry the lesson of 1,000 years is thoroughly learned 

 4 



