62 FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



profits by careful cutting, always leaving young trees to grow for future 

 use. It is difficult to make an American see any other way than the way 

 that gets the largest number of dollars to-day. Our education has all been 

 in that direction. The get-rich-quick method is much in vogue with nearly 

 all of us. Yet with all this, we are not truly wise unless we take note of 

 and learn from the experience of the peoples of other and older countries. 

 If in this respect we would study the history of northern China, France and 

 Spain on the one hand, and the history of Germany and Switzerland on 

 the other, every thoughtful person would be in favor of the State acquiring 

 immediately every acre of forests in the sixteen reserve forest counties 

 useful for preservation as forests and on account of the State's water supply. 

 Why should we not? Canals and good roads are necessary and important, 

 yet it is very doubtful whether either of them or both of them in the long 

 run are as important to the people of the State as are our forests. If the 

 choice had to be made and we had to do absolutely without one or the 

 other, the canals or the forests, I have no hesitancy in saying that we could 

 much better do without the canals than we could without the forests. 

 Yet we are expending very little money on the one that is perishable and 

 going very fast beyond recovery, and very much money on the other which 

 is not perishable and could be built at any time. Is this wise? Is it a 

 far-sighted policy? It must be remembered that in much of the forested 

 area left, when the trees are gone the soil will go, and on such sterile land 

 reforestation cannot take place naturally, nor can it be artificially reforested. 

 We could build a canal most any time, but we cannot replace the lost soil. 

 This State should by constitutional amendment, if necessary, provide money 

 enough to acquire nearly all of the forest land left. That would be using 

 good judgment. I can only give the warning, state the facts, and sincerely 

 hope the warning will be heeded. 



The next important thing that should be taken up, considered and 

 acted on is, how can we improve the method of handling the forests we have 

 and those to be acquired? In considering and dealing with that subject, 

 we should divest ourselves of all sentimental, purely aesthetic and selfish 

 notions, and consider and solve the question in a practical business way. 

 If we want the property only to obtain and own some forest land, to pay 

 taxes on it, to spend a large amount of money in trying to protect the 



