xxviii = FOREWORD 
e.- 
- * 
sizes, without leaving even a tree for seed, is radically wrong. But 
if all the methods that might work for better forest conditions 
were made mandatory at one stroke, the business of lumbering and 
the allied manufacturing industries would be reduced to a condition 
bordering on confusion. 
At this period of labor shortage and other unfavorable situa- 
tions, when it is a problem how to get enough lumber cut and de- 
livered to the mills to keep the wheels turning, it does not seem 
best that we try to adopt forestry all at once. That we will con- 
tinue to progress I am fully assured. Self interest alone on the 
part of our private owners will gradually induce them to practice 
forestry for themselves, and this tendency toward voluntary im- 
provement will grow as we learn to consider our forests not as a 
mine to be exhausted and abandoned, but as a crop to be cultivated 
and produced. One particular method by which the private owner 
can favor his land is through requiring of his operators more 
respect for the young growth that is so liable to damage or de- 
struction in the process of lumbering. The young soft wood trees 
that have proved their dominance by struggling up through brush 
and sprouts are worth dollars, and their development toward a fu- 
ture crop is far ahead of anything we may accomplish by the 
planting of tiny seedlings. 
o yearn 
Logs in Indian Pond, East Branch of the Kennebec. 
at Phote by Maine Forestry Dept. 
