The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1908-03-19
consistently for number of years.

consistently for number of years.
A circular entitled what Forestry
Has Done, just published by the For
est Service, and obtainable upon appli-
cation to the Forester, Washington, D.
c., reviews the forest work of the lead
ing foreign countries. The chief les
sons which may be learned from them
are summarized as followed:
What forestry has done in other coun-
tries shows, first of all. that forestry
pays, and that it pays best where the
most money is expended in applying it.
The United States is enormously be-
hindhand in its expenditure for the
management of 1.-THE National Forests,
but nevertheless returns have already
increased with increased expenditure
for management.
A second lesson, clearly brought home
by foreign forestry, is the need of time
ly action, since forest waste can be re-
paired only at great cost.
Third, private initiative does not suf-
flee by itself wasteful forest use. Eng
land, it is truce has so far consistently
followed let-alone policy. However,
England has been depending upon for
eign supplies of wood. Now that all
Europe is running behind every year in
the production of wood (2,620, 600 tons).
and there are unmistakable signs that
countries which lead as exporters of
wood will have to curtail their wood ex-
ports, England is at last feeling her de-
pendence and is specializing uneasily as
to where she can certainly secure what
wood she needs in the future.
Fourth, when the forest countries are
compared as to wood imports and ex-
ports, and when it is realized that a
number of the countries which practice
forestry are now on the wood-importing
list, the need of forestry in the export
countries is doubly enforced.
Russia, Sweden, Austria-Hungary,
and Canada, for instance, are making
good the wood deficit of large part of
the world. Sweden cuts much more
wood Q06, 600, 600 cubic feet than she
produces; Russia, in spite of her enor-
nous forest resources, has probably en-
tered the same road; and England, the
leading importer of wood, must count
more and more on Canada. But the
United States consumes every year
from three to four times the wood
which its forests produce, and in due
time will doubtless take all the wood
that Canada can spare. In other words,
unless the counties of the western hem
isphere apply forestry promptly and
thoroughly, they will one day assuredIy
be held responsible for worldwide
timber famine.
Fifth, in comparison with foreign
countries the prospects for forestry in
the United States are particularly
bright, for the following reasons:
o. We start with the assurance that
success can certainly be attained.
(2) We have few of the handicaps
which have trammeled other countries.
We have no ancient forest rights and
usages with which to contend, or trou-
blesome property questions to settle.
(3) The results which other lands
have achieved by long struggle, often
with bitter costs, are free to us to use
as we wish. We have, it is true, our
purely National and local forest ques-
tons, but the key to many of them is
somewhere in the keeping Of the coun-
tries which have achieved forestry.
(4l In variety combined with value
our forests are without a parallel in the
world. They produce timber adapted
to the greatest variety of uses, so that,
except to meet shortage, importations
of wood are unnecessary. Furthermore,
transportation facilitins enable US to
make every forest region available.
Thus, by specializing our forest man
agement, each kind of forest may be
made to yield the kind of material for
which it if best adapted, and the wastes
due to compulsory use Of local supplies
may be practically eliminated.