International Paper 

 Company's Southern Kraft 

 Division, this one company 

 would have over 500 

 foresters directing its forest 

 management policies and 

 practices. The industry had 

 over 2,000 professionally 

 trained foresters at work by 

 1969 (Clepper 1971, p 

 254). 



In 1958, Walter H. Meyer, 

 professor of forest 

 management on the faculty 

 of the Yale School of 

 Forestry, traveled 

 throughout the South 

 interviewing the personnel 

 of 21 industrial organizations 

 about their forestry 

 operations. These 

 companies controlled 9.5 

 million acres and employed 

 more than 500 technically 

 trained people. He was 

 impressed with the strides 

 made by the industrial 

 foresters in their current 

 management as well as 

 their efforts to correct past 

 mistakes made in 

 management of these lands 

 (Clepper 1971, p. 253). 



Perhaps it is well to note 

 here the old cliche that 

 doctors bury their mistakes 

 while architects cover theirs 

 with vines and shrubbery, 

 and add that foresters have 

 their mistakes noted by 



forest historians 40 or 50 

 years after the mistake was 

 perpetrated-many times 

 with little appreciation for 

 the economics of the day 

 that motivated the practices 

 employed. So long as we 

 live in a free enterprise 

 atmosphere, it will be thus 

 with the conflicts between 

 current profits and 

 long-range good being 

 solved by the statesmanship 

 of industry leaders. Their 

 ability to cope with Wall 

 Street financial analysts, 

 fund investors, 

 stockholders, and 

 environmentalists and the 

 ability of their professionally 

 trained foresters to 

 recognize and accept the 

 legitimacy of those 

 conflicting claims in their 

 forest management advice 

 are the keys to the future 

 productivity of these lands. 



Before industry's first efforts 

 at management of their 

 properties for continuing 

 crops came a recognition 

 in the very early 1900's that 

 rampant wildfire in the pine 

 forests of the South had to 

 be dealt with before 

 significant investment in 

 other forest practices would 

 be effective. It was 

 imperative to confront both 

 the naval stores industry, 

 which traditionally burned 



