FORESTRY. 



143 



woods as exist over the major part of this 

 country. Such considerations are only in- 

 tended for forests which approach at least 

 a normal condition; such do not exist to 

 any great extent, if at all, in the Eastern 

 United States. He emphasizes the import- 

 ance of the application of the primary 

 rules of silviculture; that is, cutting 

 wherever the skilled eye of the forester 

 may dictate for the gradual betterment of 

 the stand and soil conditions. No fixed 

 rules can be applied, however. It depends 

 on the circumstances of each situation and 

 on the personality of the forester. How 

 misleading is the system of cutting down 

 to a certain diameter limit in the hands of 

 unskilled men! It is neither forestry nor 

 lumbering. It is like cutting the best 

 cabbages from a garden and leaving the 

 rest to fight as best they can with the 

 weeds. It produces in the end the same 

 conditions that are produced at once by 

 the lumberman. It would be far better 

 in many instances to cut clear and plant 

 afresh. As Dr. Fernow aptly says there 

 are 3 primary essentials to American for- 

 estry: 



Better protection to forest property, in- 

 cluding rational methods of taxation : a 

 subject of legislation. 



More thorough utilization of the forest 

 crop: a subject of .wood technology and 

 development of means of transportation 

 and harvesting. 



Silvicultural methods of harvesting so 

 as to produce a desirable new crop or 

 else artificial reforestation, if that is more 

 efficient and cheaper, the main concern of 

 forestry. 



It is, therefore, plain from this valuable 

 brochure that the maintenance of a sus- 

 tained yield is not essential to forestry, 

 but that the removal of dead, unsound and 

 undesirable trees or careful improvement 

 cuttings, careful utilization, roads and other 

 labor saving devices, and in many in- 

 stances, but, of course, not always, plant- 

 ing of the most desirable species are es- 

 sential to true forestry. 



FORCES WORKING AGAINST FOREST 

 RESERVES. 



An article in the Minneapolis Journal 

 of April 20 throws an interesting side 

 light on the antagonistic forces with 

 which the promoters of the State forest 

 reservation policy have to count. The 

 article exposes at great length the recent 

 defraudations, which have characterized 

 logging operations in the various Indian 

 reservations of the State this season. 

 This year they were in part found out and 

 the penalty in part was paid, but the 

 frauds have been perpetrated for years. 



The law permits the sale of dead and 

 down pine timber for the benefit of the 

 Indians, but the loggers find it difficult to 



recognize this class of timber. At least, 

 they can not keep their hands ofT the 

 green ; hence a considerable quantity of the 

 latter goes into the log pile with the dead. 



If, as in the present year, this is found 

 out, the Indians are the gainers by the 

 increased penalty price which the lumber- 

 men are forced to pay; though it is not 

 likely all the ill doers are found out and 

 all the green logs are scaled. 



The heaviest inroads this season have 

 been made in the pine on the lands which 

 it has been desired to have set aside, as a 

 forest reserve around Cass lake, and this 

 fact brings out the main opposition to 

 the National Park proposition; the lum- 

 bermen oppose it because it withdraws 

 the timber from their immediate grasp; 

 the Indians object to it because they ex- 

 pect it will curtail their immediate in- 

 come. The position is quite natural and 

 rational from their narrow point of view 

 and in the light of the forest reserve pol- 

 icy as hitherto mostly conceived and 

 practiced. If reservation means entire 

 withdrawal from use, those who are at 

 present relying on the exploitation of this 

 resource for their livelihood naturally ob- 

 ject to it. Not until a rational system of 

 forest management, which provides for a 

 proper utilization and reproduction of the 

 virgin crop, goes hand in hand with the 

 forest reservation policy will such opposi- 

 tion cease. Not until it is understood 

 that rational, conservative and economic 

 forest use, under skillful, professional 

 management, is at the bottom of forest 

 preservation, will the reservation policy 

 appeal to a Western community and the 

 selfish interests of to-day yield to the 

 broader continued interests of the future. 



If the opposition of the lumbermen and 

 Indians appears narrow, selfish, greedy, 

 what shall we say of the opposition of 

 the farmers of Michigan, who are respon- 

 sible for having defeated, last winter, the 

 most rational legislation on behalf of 

 forestry. They are not better than the 

 thieving loggers. This legislation pro- 

 vided for the gradual acquisition by the 

 State of cut over and abandoned tirnber 

 lands for the purpose of recuperating and 

 managing the same as timber producers. 

 The farmers leagued themselves together 

 with real estate dealers and newspapers 

 profiting by advertising tax titles, they 

 fearing that the withdrawal of forest 

 lands from settlement would prevent set- 

 tlers from coming in and sharing the 

 burden of taxation. 



They overlook the facts that most of 

 these lands in their present condition are 

 not fit, and probably never will be, for 

 farm use; are dead capital, and are not 

 tax producing; that in the hands of the 

 State they may become not only valuable 

 again, but if restored will furnish the 



