31 



Now, I believe tbat our own brief experience confirms that of the va- 

 rious European countries and is in full harmony with the a x^riori de- 

 duction drawn from a study of the problem, viz, that a wide and inten- 

 sive care on the part of the Government is ijidispensable to insure the 

 preservation of the necessary forests. As already shown, our Govern- 

 ment has never taken it for granted that any branch of industry would 

 flourish to the desirable extent if left to itself. Much less likely is for- 

 estry to flourish, if left to itself, than other branches. A very short 

 glance at the history of our forests is sufficient to show why they have 

 been disappearing so rapidly. 



The farmer has cleared ofl', perhaps, as many acres as the lumberman, 

 it may be more ; but he has cleared the ground for the purpose of cul- 

 tivating it, and though it is undoubtedly true that in some localities he 

 has pursued a short-sighted policy and cut off an excessive amount of 

 the forest, yet on the whole most of the clearing he has done has been 

 of a character that has contributed to increase the total wealth, present 

 and prospective, of the community. This can not be said to the same 

 extent of the lumberman, who has often cleared the forests from ground 

 which was really good for nothing but to grow forests. Until a very 

 recent period it was possible to get possession of forest lands for a mere 

 song. A company having once put up its mills, found it for its interest 

 to use up the supply of material as soon as possible and then to change 

 the location of its works. Such enterprises had little interest in the 

 welfare of the region within which the mills were situated, for they did 

 not expect to stay longer than was necessary to make use of the wood 

 which was suitable for their purposes. They cared still less for the in- 

 terests of the dwellers in the valleys of the water-courses which their 

 policy was converting into entirely different sorts of streams. They 

 hoped to make more money by cutting down the trees as rapidly as 

 possible and then moving on than in an 3- other way, and as it was money 

 alone which they were after they did what promised to give them the 

 biggest and quickest returns. From their stand-point it was all right, 

 and just what everybody else in society would have done if he had had 

 the chance, but it was none the less ruinous to the interests of those 

 who were affected by it. The feeling of the injured had little chance, 

 however, to concentrate itself against any one, as the aggressors were 

 often far removed from the scene of operations which affected them, 

 and the injured were, moreover, ignorant of the true cause of -their 

 losses. In a word, it is to the pecuniary interest of the lumberman to 

 cut as fast as he can, since the more he cuts the more money he 

 makes, and if the supply gives out he can move on to where there is 

 plenty of it. What does he care even if the supply will come to an 

 end in twenty or twenty five or fifty years? That is a long way off^ 

 and after him the deluge, i^ow, I think that no one can doubt that it 

 was a short- sighted policy for our States and the nation to be- so free 

 with their timber resources as to hand them over without control of 



