4 BULLETIN 1496, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
No rule of thumb can be written that would cover the many 
elements and risks entering into such a calculation. But it is worthy 
of note that forestry offers a fresh opportunity for applying the 
same principle of carrying timber reserves that has long been fol- 
lowed by the more stable and well-organized units among wood- 
~ using industries. | 
It is not practicable to draw a hard-and-fast line between the 
first steps that will maintain some degree of productiveness on forest 
land and the more intensive measures that will bring the quantity 
and quality of wood produced more nearly up to ideal results. Zon 
has not attempted, therefore, to deal with two general types of forest 
practice as separate and distinct. He has rather presented a common- 
sense résumé of various steps in timber growing in a form that will 
be most helpful to the man in the woods. His bulletin has been 
written primarily for the landowner and the lumberman, to whom 
timber growing is a concrete business and logging problem. 
To the men who own forest-producing land in the Lake States or 
who are engaged in indusiries which require timber as raw material, 
forestry now offers a commercial opportunity. Satisfactory returns 
from forestry can not be promised in sweeping terms any more than 
returns from the manufacture of lumber or paper. But the oppor- 
tunity for a profitable employment of capital and business talent in 
the growing of timber merits the same consideration and the same 
expert study as industrial opportunities in the manufacture of timber. 
This applies with special force to commercial institutions which have 
made large capital investments in manufacturing plants and dis- 
tributing organizations, dependent for their maintenance upon a 
future supply of forest-grown materials. But it applies no less to 
owners of land, in large tracts or farm wood lots, the earning capacity 
of which hes in the growing of trees and which, without tree growth, 
will become either a doubtful asset or an outright liability. 
The Forest Service earnestly asks the forest-land owners of the 
Lake States to determine for themselves, with the same care with 
which they would approach any other business problem, whether 
timber growing offers a commercial opportunity which they should 
grasp. It commends this publication to them, not as a complete or 
authoritative scheme that can forthwith be followed with profit in 
their own woods, but as a starting point in utilizing the opportunities 
that forestry may hold out to them. 
The Forest Service has tremendous faith in the commercial promise 
of timber growing to American landowners. The law of supply 
and demand is working steadily to create timber values in the Lake 
States which will pay fair returns on forestry as a business. The 
economic history of other countries which have passed through a 
cycle of virgin forest depletion lke our own, points to the same 
conclusion. The time is approaching when forestry, and forestry 
alone, will supply the enormous quantities of wood demanded by 
American markets. The fundamental laws of business must in the 
nature of things so operate as to enable the markets for forest 
products to be supplied at’a profit to the grower of timber. ‘The 
returns already secured from forestry at points in the eastern United 
States show that this relationship between the value of timber and 
the cost of producing it is coming about. 
W. B. GREELEY. 
