FOREST PATHOLOGY IN FOREST REGULATION. 15 



PERIOD OF TRANSITION. 



American forestry stands now at the very beginning of a period of 

 transition from the handling of virgin forests to actual forest regula- 

 tion. The most urgent problem, therefore, consists in how to take 

 care of our forests as we have them, with all their defects, with in- 

 dividual decadence and decay, and to leave them to future genera- 

 tions in as favorable a state as possible, judged by our very limited 

 insight of to-day. At the present time the only means at the disposal 

 of the Government to carry out any plans in forest regulation based 

 upon what appears to us as sound silviculture is through timber sales. 

 The Government does not and can not cut its own timber. It is 

 therefore entirely dependent upon a highly variable outside factor 

 with regard to the most important part of its silvicultural work, a 

 factor over which it has but little control. All attempts at the regu- 

 lation of yield must then be concentrated on timber-sales areas. A 

 comparison between the area actually cut over annually and the 

 total national-forest area that may eventually become accessible to 

 logging operations will show the severe hardship under which the 

 Government is forced to work. Moreover, timber sales do not 

 always occur where they are most needed from a silvicultural point 

 of view, nor do they always cover the entire natural units upon 

 which it is desirable to prepare for a system of regulation. A com- 

 prehensive system of regulation on a larger scale following natural 

 units is out of the question as long as the Government is not in a 

 position to do silvicultural work on its own land where it is most 

 needed. 



The aim of the Forest Service at the present time consists less in 

 how to do the greatest amount of good to future generations than in 

 how to do the least harm and at the same time to do justice to our 

 present-day conditions. Instead of exhausting our energies in sterile 

 speculation of what might happen in 100 to 200 years from now, there 

 is a strong tendency toward applying them first to the analysis of the 

 most urgent needs of to-day and then to the exact and painstaking 

 study of all the innumerable factors which enter into a comprehensive 

 plan for the future structure of American forestry. It is well to 

 remember that so far, not even the methods leading to the majority 

 of such studies are worked out. The necessity of taking care of our 

 present-day timber supply and of providing for the future in an exten- 

 sive rather than intensive way has found strong expression in Chap- 

 man's x " American Method/ 7 where regulation is based not only on 

 present volume and annual growth, but also on the " actual condition 

 and amount of timber in the different age classes, with approximate 

 knowledge of the behavior and condition of the age classes for an 



1 Chapman, H. H. Coordination of growth studies, reconnaissance and regulation of yield on national 

 forests. In Proc. Soc. Amer. Forest., v. 8, no. 3, 1913. pp. 317-326. (See p. 323.) 



