FUTURE OF FORESTRY 169 
protecting and improving their state forests, but the 
private owner considers his little woodlot worthy of care 
and attention. As a result the forests in these countries 
are unusually well kept and free from damage so that a 
net revenue ranging from one dollar and fifty cents to 
six dollars per acre per year is obtained. The awakening 
of interest among the private timber land owners in 
this country is the great need at present for only one- 
fourth of the forest land and one-fifth of the standing 
timber is owned by the Federal Government and the 
States. Unless the owners of this great bulk of our 
timber supply can be induced or assisted to practice 
some sort of forestry upon their holdings the future 
generations face a serious shortage of desirable forest 
products. 
Forestry at Home and Abroad.—The true situation 
is of course that the American lumberman regards 
harvesting of the forest crop as a business, and rightly 
so. He cannot afford to take steps to perpetuate the 
nation’s supply of lumber which would reduce his 
profit to the vanishing point. At a recent gathering 
of lumbermen a remark was made concerning the great 
waste in American logging; that only forty per cent 
of the tree reached the consumer in contrast to the sit- 
uation in Germany where tops, branches and even 
stumps were sold. In reply one of the lumbermen 
stated that the amount of waste was not the fault of 
the lumberman, but rather market conditions were to 
blame; that the average timber operator would be only 
too glad to sell stumps, tops and branches and would 
even sell the holes the stumps came from if there were 
a demand for them. We simply cannot afford to do 
things that the average foreign forester considers 
necessary. 
