Ill 
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 neighbors as Norway and Sweden. This 
policy has seemed satisfactory to the people in spite of the ex- 
amples of a more provident policy afforded by rival nations almost 
at her door. The geographical and economic position of the coun- 
try have permitted the government, for the time at least, to ignore 
measures found* necessary for the public welfare in other coun- 
tries 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 forestrv were brought home to them by hard knocks. 
Their forest systems were built up gradually as the result of hard- 
ship. They did not first spin fine theories and then apply those 
theories by main force. On the contrary, thev 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, undertaken as a measure of relief, and continued 
as a safeguard against future calamity. 
Roughly, those countries which today manage their forests on 
sound principles have passed through four stages of forest experi- 
ence. At first the forests were so abundant as to be in the way, 
and so they were either neglected or destroyed. Next, as settle- 
ments 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 or even protected. Third, the increasing 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 manage- 
ment 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 
practiced increasingly by farsighted private citizens, comes when 
the last lesson in the school of forest experience is mastered. 
The United States, then, in attacking the problem of how best 
to use its great forest resources, is not in the position of a pioneer 
in the field. It has the experience of all other countries to go 
upon. There is no need' for years of experiment with untried 
theories. The forest principles which hundreds of years of actual 
practice have proved right are at its command. The only question 
