356 



[October, 1908. 



TIMBERS. 



WHAT FORESTRY HAS DONE. 



The following extracts are reprinted 

 from Circular lJfi, Forest Service, 

 [U.S. Department of Agriculture:— 



Introduction. 

 Many people in this country think 

 that forestry had never been tried until 

 the Government began to practise it 

 upon the National Forest. Yet forestry 

 is practised by every civilized country 

 in the worid, except China and Turkey. 

 It gets results which can be got no other 

 way, and which are necessary to the 

 general welfare. Forestry is not a new 

 thing. It was discussed two thousand 

 years ago, and it has been studied and 

 applied with increasing thoroughness 

 ever since. 



The principles of forestry are every- 

 where the same. They rest on natural 

 laws, which are at work everywhere 

 and all the time. It is simply a question 

 of how best to apply these laws to fit 

 local needs and conditions. No matter 

 how widely countries may differ in size, 

 climate, population, industry, or govern- 

 ment, provided only they have forests, 

 all of them must come to forestry some 

 time as a matter of necessity. 



The more advanced and progressive 

 countries arrive first and go farthest in 

 forestry, as they do in other things. 

 Indeed, we might almost take forestry 

 as a yardstick with which to measure 

 the height of a civilization, On the one 

 hand, the nations which follow forestry 

 most widely and systematically, would 

 be found to be the most enlightened 

 nations, On the other hand when we 

 applied our yardstick to such countries 

 as are without forestry, we could say 

 with a good deal of assurance, by this 

 test alone, " Here is a backward nation." 



A singular and suggestive exception 

 is England, which, though provided 

 with mountain and heat lands capable 

 of producing a large part of the wood 

 for home consumption, has, with strange 

 indifference, 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 out- 

 side aid from such near neighbours 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 geographical 

 and economic position of the country 



has permitted the Government, for the 

 time at least, to ignore measures found 

 necessary 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. Their lessons 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, suffer- 

 ing, 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, under- 

 taken as a measure of relief, and 

 continued as a safeguard against future 

 calamity. 



Roughly, those countries which to-day 

 manage their forests on sound principles 

 have passed through four stages of 

 forest experience. At first the forests 

 were so abundant 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 

 and even protected. Third, the increas- 

 ing 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 wasteful 

 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 practised increasingly by 

 farsighted private citizens, comes when 

 the last lesson in the school of forest 

 experience is mastered. 



