22 FORESTRY INVESTIGATIONS U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Forestry to be carried on profitably requires the bringing of large areas under one manage- 

 ment, as the German governments do; it requires large amounts of capital permanently invested; 

 it can not be carried on as a speculative business. To prove that this is so we need only inspect 

 the comparatively poor results of private forestry in Germany, as given in the Appendix. 



Such investments will by and by attract our large capitalists and trusts, when forestry will 

 be carried on as profitably as in the older countries. But this is a matter which necessarily comes 

 slowly and can not be brought about by any argument or action except that of economic changes. 



The writer, having had business experience himself, soon became convinced that before a 

 general argument of the profitableness of forestry could be advanced many changes in economic 

 conditions must take place, among which must be especially a further reduction in virgin sup- 

 plies and the establishment of the fact of a threatened scarcity of the same; in other words, an 

 absolute necessity for the application of the art of forestry and also a change in the attitude 

 toward investments in general from a speculative to a permanent character. 



He, therefore, was impressed the more with the necessity of Government action to counteract 

 the destructive tendencies and to provide for the future, and also with the need of knowledge as 

 to our actual supplies on hand. 



This knowledge can be had with satisfactory precision only by the expenditure of sufficient 

 funds, as intimated before. These, in spite of the urgent presentations of the matter could never be 

 secured; the Census of 1880 had attempted the task with insufficient funds, at least with reference 

 to certain classes of supplies, and the results, rightly or wrongly, were promptly discredited. 



The census authorities of 1890, being requested to fill this important gap in our knowledge of 

 the country's condition, did not consider the matter as a proper one to be included in its investi- 

 gations — the greatest source of wealth next to agriculture being thus neglected — although many 

 inferior industries were thoroughly canvassed. The Division of Forestry was, therefore, in this 

 particular reduced to taking information second-hand and to attempt the various estimates, which 

 have been discussed in the earlier part of this report, and some of which are rehearsed in the 

 appendix. 



Whatever argument could be brought to induce the Government to at least take care of its 

 own holdings was employed in reports, bulletins, and statements before Senate and House com- 

 mittees. Notably in Bulletin 2, which describes in detail the conditions of the Eocky Mountain 

 forests, mainly the property of the Federal Government, the duty of the State with reference to the 

 property has been fully discussed, and finally through these efforts, assisted by other agencies, 

 the Government was committed to the policy of forest reservations, happily inauguiated in 1891. 



For the Government, to be sure, other than financial considerations are paramount, and it can 

 well afford, for cultural and economic reasons, to maintain forest reservations, even it^ they do not 

 pay, or if they do not pay the rate of interest which the private business man expects from his 

 venture. 



THEE PLANTING IN THE PLAINS. 



While we may, then, leave the development of this part of forest economy — the demonstration 

 of its financial profitableness — to the next generation, there is the indirect profit which comes to 

 the farmer or owner of land in stocking the poor parts of his property with a crop which will 

 produce, if not an interest, yet an effect on the rest of his propeity. The settler in the forestless 

 plains, especially, will pursue tree planting for the purpose of ameliorating his surroundings. Con- 

 siderable attention has, therefore, been paid to developing silvicultural methods under the condi- 

 tions prevailing in the plains. 



This tree planting has in view protection from cold and hot winds, shade and shelter, rather 

 than wood supplies, and we may as well recognize at once the fact that, while undoubtedly this 

 beneficial influence of timber belts may be secured in most parts of the arid and subarid belts, 

 and incidentally the supplying of firewood and other timber of small dimensions for domestic use, 

 it is entirely out of the question to expect that these plantings will ever furnish supplies for our 

 great lumber market. These supplies will always, the writer believes, be grown in the regions in 

 which forests now grow and which are by nature best adapted to wood crops. 



In these arid and subarid regions, where nature has denied tree growth, the climatic condi- 

 tions are so different from those of the humid parts that not only different methods of cultivation 



