41 



done without becoming an excessive burden, and there is nothing 

 about it which cannot be easily understood by any person of or- 

 dinary intelligence. 



One important point ought to be emphasized, and that is the 

 necessity of winning the support and sympathy of the people. It 

 can not be done by drastic laws and severe penalities or by long 

 sermons and dry lectures but will be attained rather by leading 

 the people to see that forestry will pay. Show them that a few 

 acres of good timber, growing and increasing in value, on the 

 poor spots of their farms, will be more profitable than that many 

 square miles of running-briars and sassafras. Make this clear and 

 they will begin to figure how they can obtain the young locust, 

 oak, chestnut, or walnut trees and plant them. No technical for- 

 est learning is required, just plain, common sense. 



In a broader way the same method will hold with lumber opera- 

 tions. The millman will not cut his land clean and abandon it, 

 if he can figure out that it will pay to leave something to come 

 on for the next cutting. Protect the land from fire, and also pro- 

 tect it against unjust taxation, and the owner will begin to prac- 

 tice forestry. As soon as he sees money in it he will do it, and not 

 till then. The kind of forestry that will work in West Virginia 

 is the kind that brings in money. Trees for shade, shelter, orna- 

 ment, and beauty are desirable things, but the income from plant- 

 ings of that kind is not so apparent as from those which sell for 

 cash. 



The planting of wood lots on rough farm corners, and conser- 

 vative cutting in lumber operations, are matters which the own- 

 ers of the land can properly look after, and they will do it as soon 

 as they see profit in it. But the fire problem is too large a matter 

 for the individual to handle. The State and counties ought to do 

 that. An owner can not protect his own land from fire unless 

 surrounding lands are protected, although he can plant trees on 

 his land, or cut his timber in the right way, whether his neigh- 

 bors treat theirs in the same way or not. The State's duty goes 

 at least to the extent of protecting all forests from fire, no matter 

 who owns them. When that is done, the individual owners can do 

 a great deal of what remains. 



The most urgent need, next to protection against fire, is edu- 

 cation ; not schools for training professional foresters, but infor- 

 mation that will acquaint the people with what they ought to do, 



