ference, been leading all nations in volume of wood imports and 

 depending mainly upon foreign sources for her supplies. England 

 has hitherto been able to count with certainty upon outside aid from 

 such near neighbors as Norway and Sweden. This policy has seemed 

 satisfactory to the people in spite of the examples of a more provi- 

 dent policy afforded by rival nations almost at her door. The geo- 

 graphical and economic position of the country have permitted the 

 government, for the time at least, to ignore measures found neces- 

 sary for the public welfare in other countries of the same rank. 



The countries of Europe and Asia, taken together, have passed 

 through all the stages of forest history and applied all the known 

 principles of forestry. They are rich in forest experience. The les- 

 sons of forestry were brought home to them by hard knocks. Their 

 forest systems were built up gradually as the result of hardship. 

 They did not first spin fine theories and then apply those theories by 

 main force. On the contrary, they began by facing disagreeable facts. 

 Every step of the way toward wise forest use, the world over, has 

 been made at the sharp spur of want, suffering, or loss. As a result, 

 the science of forestry is one of the most practical and most directly 

 useful of all the sciences. It is a serious work, undertaken as a meas- 

 ure of relief, and continued as a safeguard against future calamity. 



Eoughly, those countries^ which to-day manage their forests on 

 sound principles have passed through four stages of forest experi- 

 ence. At first the forests were so abuildant as to be in the way, and 

 so they were either neglected or destroyed. Next, as settlements grew 

 and the borders of the forest receded farther and farther from the 

 places where wood was needed and used, the question of local wood 

 supplies had to be faced, and the forest was spared or even protected. 

 Third, the increasing need of wood, together with better knowledge 

 of the forest and its growth, led to the recognition of the forest as a 

 crop, like agricultural crops, which must be harvested and which 

 should therefore be made to grow again. In this stage silviculture, 

 or the management of the forest so as to encourage its continued best 

 growth, was born. Finally, as natural and industrial progress led to 

 measures for the general welfare, including a wiser and less waste- 

 ful use of natural resources, the forest was safeguarded and controlled 

 so as to yield a constant maximum product year after year and from 

 one generation to another. Systematic forestry, therefore, applied 

 by the nation for the benefit of the people and practiced increasingly 

 by farsighted private citizens, comes when the last lesson in the 

 school of forest experience is mastered. 



The United States, then, in attacking the problem of how best to 

 use its great forest resources, is not in the position of a pioneer in the 

 field. It has the experience of all other countries to go upon. There 



[Gil-. 140] 



