FORESTRY AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT. & 



others not at all. Probably the one idea which most owners have 

 had in common was to adopt whatever course appeared to. be the 

 most profitable financially. Ordinarily, under the prevailing eco- 

 nomic conditions, this meant cutting with entire disregard for the 

 future. Enormous stands of apparently inexhaustible virgin timber 

 were available, stumpagc prices were low, and competition was keen. 

 As a result the average lumberman was forced to conduct his busi- 

 ness in the cheapest possible manner and very naturally felt no- 

 inclination to incur the additional expense necessary to secure closer 

 utilization of timber, to provide for reforestation, or even to insure 

 fire protection. This does not mean that the lumberman had less 

 regard than other men for the needs of the future and for the rights 

 of generations yet unborn, but merely that he was acting, in accord- 

 ance with the necessities imposed by the accepted system, as his 

 individual interests dictated. . 



The net result has been that in the handling of our forest re- 

 sources forestry has been conspicuous by its absence. Little attempt 

 has been made to keep forest land productive, and still less to secure 

 a continuous yield of wood. Speculation in timber has been rife 

 almost from the very beginning. Stumpage has. been acquired for 

 little or nothing, and profits in the lumber industry have been de- 

 rived very generally from this source rather than from the logging 

 and milling end of the business. Comparatively little thought has 

 been given to the future, which has been left to take care of itself. 



In the discussion that follows there is no desire to minimize the 

 role that the lumber industry has played in opening up undeveloped 

 regions and creating national wealth. It is not lumbering, but de- 

 structive lumbering, that calls for a remedy. And the responsi- 

 bility for destructive lumbering rests not with any individual or 

 group of individuals, but with an economic system that tends to 

 hinder rather than to help permanent community development. 



NEGLECTED EVILS OF DESTRUCTIVE LUMBERING. 



A ROVING LUMBER INDUSTRY. 



One of the most obvious economic effects of treating the forest as 

 a mine rather than as a crop has been to make lumbering in the 

 United States a roving industry, moving from one region to another 

 as the timber resources of each in turn have been depleted. Not 

 only have the States consisting chiefly of agricultural land, such as 

 Ohio and Indiana, been largely cut out, but also those with large 

 areas of land primarily valuable for forest production. New York 

 State, for example, which in 1850 stood first in the amount of lumber 

 produced, is now T twenty-fourth. Pennsylvania, which was first in 

 I860, now stands eighteenth. Michigan, which held first place from 



