FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONER. 211 



People have come to realize that the timber wasted and destroyed 

 through careless methods and lack of protection has been equal to or greater 

 than the amount that was actually utilized. The decreasing supply and 

 the increasing cost have brought home to all the necessity of doing some- 

 thing to counteract these conditions and avert, if possible, a scarcity of 

 supply that to far-seeing men seems imminent. 



This feeling has given rise to that widespread movement throughout 

 the State and nation that has brought into being the forestry movement 

 and other enterprises looking to the conservation of all our natural resources. 

 The national government has taken the lead in this matter by setting aside 

 great areas of public domain as national forests. These national forests 

 are intended for the use of the people under certain restrictions that will 

 perpetuate the forests and protect the sources of the important rivers. 

 In these forests the dead timber is always for sale and the green timber 

 also, when it is needed and it can be removed without endangering the 

 permanency of the forest. 



In the beginning considerable opposition was made to the rules and 

 regulations for exploitation that were necessary to safeguard the remaining 

 forests, encourage reproduction, and in order to obtain the greatest possible 

 utilization of the timber that was cut. As time wore on and operators 

 became accustomed to these restrictions, and realized that the hardship 

 involved is nothing compared with the benefit that is derived and that the 

 restrictions enforced were for the sole purpose of perpetuating the industry, 

 opposition ceased. It not only ceased, but many of the largest operators, 

 realizing the situation, have adopted similar regulations and are enforcing 

 them to-day in their own private operations, not alone as a protective 

 measure but as a paying business proposition. 



Section 56 of our 1909 laws, entitled ; ' Regulations as to Cutting 

 Timber," is one of these protective measures intended to insure the per- 

 petuation of the forest by its protection from fire , and reads in part as follows : 



" Every person who shall, within the forest preserve counties of the 

 state, cut or cause to be cut, or allow to be cut any coniferous trees for sale 

 or other purposes, shall cut off or lop or cause to be cut off or lopped from 

 the said trees, at the time of cutting the said trees, all the limbs or branches 

 thereof, unless the said trees be cut for sale and use with the branches thereon. 



