12 
This was about the idea of the first advocates of forest protection in 
this country: Keep out fire, keep out cattle, keep out the ax of man, 
and nothing more is needed to keep our mountains under forest cover 
forever. 
But would it be rational and would it be necessary to withdraw a 
large territory from human use in order to secure this beneficial influ- 
ence? It would be, indeed, in many localities, if the advantages, of 
keeping it under forest could not be secured simultaneously with the 
employment of the soil for useful production, but rational forest man- 
agement secures both the advantages of favorable forest conditions and 
the reproduction of useful material. Not only is the rational cutting 
of the forest not antagonistic to favorable forest conditions, but in skill- 
ful hands the latter can be improved by the judicious use of the ax. 
In fact the demands of forest preservation on the mountains and the 
methods of forest management for profit in such localities are more or 
less harmonious; thus the absolute clearing of the forest on steep hill- 
sides, which is apt to lead to desiccation and washing of the soil, is 
equally detrimental to a profitable forest management, necessitating, as 
it does, replanting under difficulties. 
Forest preservation, then, does not, as seems to be imagined by many, 
exclude proper forest utilization, but on the contrary these may well go 
hand in hand, preserving forest conditions while securing valuable 
material; the first requirement only modifies the manner, in which the 
second is satisfied. . 
WHERE SHOULD FOREST GROWTH BE MAINTAINED ? 
The forest is the most unsatisfactory form of vegetation as regards 
the maintenance of ruminants, and hence of a large population. 
Forest destruction is, therefore, the beginning of all culture and its 
essential prerequisite. 
When, however, the land that is fit for purposes of agriculture and 
grazing has been secured, it will be found that the most suecessfal 
cultivation of the soil can be carried on when forest areas are inter- 
spersed. 
If properly located, the wood lot on the farm is a most profitable prop- 
erty, directly and indirectly. 
Virst of all, the waste places, the thin soils that produce little, the 
rocky and the wet places should be left to tree growth ; because not only 
does the farm look better with the ugly spots covered, but tree growth 
is the most profitable crop on them. ‘Trees will grow, thrive, and pay 
good returns without much work. Not that the forest grows best on 
such sites, but it can grow where no other erop is possible. 
Next, there should be left a wood growth on all hillsides too steep to 
plow comfortably; on all knolls, and, in patches and belts, along all — 
slopes that are subject to washing and gullying, and also a strip alata 
all water courses. 
