E-text prepared by Robert J. Hall
PRACTICAL FORESTRY IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Protecting Existing Forests and Growing New Ones, from the Standpoint
of the Public and That of the Lumberman, with an Outline of Technical
Methods.
by
E. T. ALLEN
Forester for the Western Forestry & Conservation Association (Formerly
U. S. District Forester for Oregon, Washington and Alaska)
Issued by
The Western Forestry & Conservation Association
Office of the Forester
421 Yeon Building, Portland, Oregon.
1911
PREFACE
WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT AND WHY
The object of this booklet is to present the elementary principles
of forest conservation as they apply on the Pacific coast from
Montana to California.
There is a keen and growing interest in this subject. Citizens of
the western states are beginning to realize that the forest is a
community resource and that its wasteful destruction injures their
welfare. Lumbermen are coming to regard timber land not as a mine to
be worked out and abandoned, but as a possible source of perpetual
industry. They find little available information, however, as to
how these theories can be reduced to actual practice. The Western
Forestry and Conservation Association believes it can render no more
practical service than by being the first to outline for public
use definite workable methods of forest management applicable to
western conditions.
A publication of this length can give little more than an outline,
but attempt has been made either to answer the most obvious questions
which suggest themselves to timber owners interested in forest
preservation or to guide the latter in finding their own answers.
Only the most reliable conservative information has been drawn
on, much of it having been collected by the Government.
While the booklet is intended to be of use chiefly to forest owners,
a chapter on the advantage to the community of a proper state forest
policy is included, also a chapter on tree growing by farmers.
The first presents the economic relation of forest preservation
to public welfare, with its problems of fire prevention, taxation
and reforestation; for the use of writers, legislators, voters,
or others desiring to investigate this subject of growing public
concern. It is based upon the conclusions of the best unprejudiced
authorities who have approached these problems from the public
standpoint.
In the technical chapters on forest management and its possibilities,
the author accepts full responsibility for conclusions drawn except
when otherwise noted. To the Forest Service, however, is entitled the
credit for collecting practically all the growth and yield figures
upon which these conclusions are based. Especial acknowledgement
is due to Mr. J. F. Kümmel for information on tree planting.
In concluding this preface, the author regrets that the booklet
which it introduces was necessarily written hurriedly, a page or
two at a time, at odd hours taken from the work of a busy office.
For this reason its style and management leaves much to be desired,
but it has been thought better to make the information it contains
immediately available than to await a doubtful opportunity to rewrite
it.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
What This Book Is About, and Why.
INTRODUCTION
What We Have in the West. What We Are Doing With It. Does It Pay?
CHAPTER I. FORESTRY AND THE PUBLIC
Importance of Forests as a Community Resource. Wealth Their Manufacture
Brings to All Industries. Value as Source of Tax Revenue. Our Interest
as Consumers. Real Issue Not Property Protection but Conditions of
Life For All. Particularly Favorable Natural Forest Conditions
on Pacific Coast. Present Policy of Waste. Fire Loss. Idleness of
Deforested Land. Action We Must Take. Fire Prevention. Reforestation.
Tax Reform. Public Responsibility. Essentials of Needed State Policy.
Duty of the Average Citizen.
CHAPTER II. FORESTRY AND THE LUMBERMAN
Economic Principles Governing Forest Production. Supply and Demand.
Lumberman Must Consider. Both Profit of Forestry and Popular Demand
for Its Practice. Consumer Must Pay for Growing Timber. Attitude
of State Will Become More Encouraging. How All This Affects the
Lumberman. Should Plan for Meeting the Situation. Circumstances
that Determine Profit. Who Can Afford to Reforest Cut-over Land?
CHAPTER III. FORESTRY AND THE FOREST
Technical and Practical Problems. Elementary Principles of Forest
Growth. Fundamental Systems of Management. Nature as a Model. Logging
to Insure Another Crop. Natural and Artificial Reproduction. Details
of Management for Each Western Species. Seeding and Planting. Costs
and Carrying Charges. Rate of Growth. Probable Financial Returns.
Hardwood Experiments.
CHAPTER IV. FORESTRY AND THE FIRE HAZARD
The Slashing Menace. Brush Piling. Slash Burning. Fire Lines. Spark
Arrestors. Patrol. Associate Effort. Young Growth as a Fire Guard.
CHAPTER V. FORESTRY AND THE FARMER
Cutting Methods on the Wooded Farm. Best Use of Poor Forest Land.
The Handling of Fire in Clearing. Planting on Treeless Farms. Species
Most Promising for Fuel and Improvement Material. Windbreaks to
Prevent Evaporation of Soil Moisture. Methods and Cost of Tree
Growing.
APPENDIX
Tax Reforms to Permit Reforestation. Opinions of Expert Authorities.
The Western Forestry and Conservation Association. Its Organization
and Objects.
INTRODUCTION
WHERE WE STAND TODAY
WHAT WE HAVE
_The five states of Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California
contain half the merchantable timber in the United States today--a
fact of startling economic significance._ It means first of all that
here is an existing resource of incalculable local and national
value. It means also that here lies the most promising field of
production for all time. The wonderful density and extent of our
Western forests are not accidental, but result because climatic
and other conditions are the most favorable in the world for forest
growth. In just the degree that they excel forests elsewhere is
it easier to make them continue to do so.
WHAT WE ARE DOING WITH IT
_On the other hand, forest fires in Montana, Idaho, Washington,
Oregon and California destroy annually, on an average, timber which
if used instead of destroyed would bring forty million dollars to
their inhabitants, Idleness of burned and cut-over land represents
a direct loss almost as great._
These are actual money losses to the community. So is the failure of
revenue through the destruction of a tax resource. Equally important,
and hardly less direct, is the injury to agricultural and industrial
productiveness which depends upon a sustained supply of wood and
water.
DOES IT PAY?
Practically all this loss is unnecessary. Other countries have
stopped the forest fire evil. Other countries have found a way
to make forest land continue to grow forest. Consequently we can.
It is clearly only a question of whether it is worth while. Let us
consider this question, not only in its relation to posterity or
to the lumberman, but from the standpoint of the average citizen
of the West today.
CHAPTER I
FORESTRY AND THE PUBLIC
TIMBER MEANS PAY CHECKS
_Forest wealth is community wealth._ The public's interest in it
is affected very little by the passage of timber lands into private
ownership, for all the owner can get out of them is the stumpage
value. The people get everything else. Our forests earn nothing
except by being cut and shipped to the markets of the world. Of the
price received for them usually much less than a fifth is received
by the owner. Nearly all goes to pay for labor and supplies here
at home.
_Even now, when the western lumber industry is insignificant compared
to what it will be soon, it brings over $125,000,000 a year into
these five states._ This immense revenue flows through every artery
of labor, commerce and agriculture; in the open farming countries as
well as in the timbered districts. It is shared alike by laborer,
farmer, merchant, artisan and professional man. It is their greatest
source of income, for lumber is the chief product which, being
sold elsewhere, actually brings in outside money.
That it is essential to the prosperity of every citizen to have
this contribution to his livelihood continue requires no argument.
From the manufacturing point of view alone, our forest resources
are as important to everyone of us as to the lumberman, and in many
ways more so, for if they are exhausted he can move or change his
business; while the dependent industries cannot. But our welfare
is at stake in a dozen other ways also.
OUR INTEREST AS CONSUMERS
Every person who uses wood, whether to build, fence, burn, box
his goods, or timber his mine, is directly interested in a cheap
and plentiful supply of timber. _Every acre burned, every cut-over
acre lying idle, raises the price for him without furnishing any
revenue with which to help pay it. Every acre saved from fire,
every acre of young growth, lowers it for him and puts money in
circulation besides._
Similarly, the cost to the consumer of most articles of every day
necessity is directly affected by the connection of forest material
with their production. Wood and water are almost as essential to
mining as are, hence influence the price of metals. In the form
of fuel, buildings, or boxes, if not as an actual constituent of
the product itself, wood supply bears a like relation to almost
every industry.
Every reduction of the lumber traffic which helps support our railroads,
or of their supply of poles, ties and car material, tends to raise
the cost of our groceries and other rail-transported commodities.
SCHOOL LANDS
Most of our western states have immense areas of forested grant
lands, the sale of timber from which supports the public schools and
other state institutions. Destruction of this asset is a direct blow
to these institutions which can be only partially met by increased
taxation.
THE FARMER HAS THE MOST AT STAKE
In the case of western agriculture, the relation to the forest
is fundamental and inseparable. Enough has been said to show that
because of its importance as a sustaining industry lumber manufacture
is a prodigious factor in creating a market for farm products,
also that the cost of all articles used by the farmer is cheapened
by forest preservation. _But back of this lies the all-important
dependence of western agriculture upon irrigation. We must save
the forests that store the waters._
Of particular significance to the farmer, too, is the tremendous
importance of forests as a source of tax revenue to help support
state and county government. The cost of government is growing as
our population grows. Taxable property grows mainly in the cities.
Elsewhere we confront the problem of diminishing timber to tax and
consequent heavier and heavier burden on farm property. _It will
be a bad situation for the farmer if the timber is all destroyed
and he has to pay all the taxes, as well as a higher price for his
buildings, fences and fruit boxes. Every acre of timber burned
or wasted hastens this day._
The conservation thus suggested does not mean non-use of ripe timber,
but does mean protecting it from useless waste and destruction,
and replacing it by reforestation when it is used.
CONDITIONS OF LIFE THE REAL ISSUE INVOLVED
Lack of space forbids recounting many other ways in which the forest
question touches the average citizen. It enters into our prospects
of development, our investment values and our insurance rates. Like
the keystone of an arch, or the link of a chain, forests cannot
be destroyed without the collapse of the entire fabric. Their
preservation is not primarily a property question, but a principle
of public economy, dealing with one of the elements of human existence
and progress. _Failure to treat it as such means harder conditions
of life, a handicap of industry; not only for our children, but
for us as well._
It all sums up to this: On every acre of western forest destroyed
by fire, or that fails to grow where it might grow, _we, the citizens
of the West who are not lumbermen, bear fully eighty per cent of
the direct loss_ and sustain serious further injury to our general
safety and profit.
HOW WE THROW AWAY MILLIONS
Notwithstanding the above facts, we allow $40,000,000 which we and
our families should share to vanish every year, leaving nothing
more enduring than a pall of smoke from Canada to the Mexican line.
The great area thus denuded uselessly, with that which produced
public wealth through lumber manufacture, _together having been
capable of affording a community resource of $165,000,000_, are
abandoned to lie idle and a menace to remaining timber. It is exactly
as though the owner of a 165-acre orchard should destroy forty
acres wantonly and also abandon the rest, unfenced, uncultivated
and uncared for.
The one waste is as unnecessary as the other. Our Pacific coast
forests owe their unparalleled productiveness to a peculiarly fortunate
combination of climate and rapid growing species unknown elsewhere.
Nowhere else is forest reproduction so swift and certain. Nowhere
can it be secured with so little effort and expense. A little
forethought in cutting methods and protection of the cut-over area
from recurring fires, and an early second crop is assured. Saw timber
can be grown in forty to seventy-five years; ties, mine timber and
piles in less.
HOW WE MIGHT MAKE IMMENSE PROFIT INSTEAD.
It is reasonable to suppose that, although the quality may be inferior
to that of the old forest removed now, timber scarcity will make a
second cut in sixty years equally profitable per acre. Therefore,
if the area denuded annually at present were encouraged to reforest
and protected, it should at the end of that period again yield
$165,000,000 to the community. Each year's growth at present would
be worth a sixtieth of that sum, or $2,750,000. _If given any chance
to do so, the area deforested in only ten years would actually
earn the people of our five western forest states $27,500,000 a
year._
Almost nothing is being done to make it do so. As the result of
the same popular neglect, this annual loss of nearly twenty-eight
millions of dollars is added to that of forty millions caused by
destruction of merchantable timber by fire, and the injury to tax
revenue, water supply and countless dependent industries still
remain to be reckoned. And to this sacrifice of wealth we add that
of scores of human lives, incredible suffering, and the wiping
out of homes and villages by forest fires.
PLAIN WORDS FOR OUR PRESENT POLICY
Let us draw a parallel: If riot or invasion should sweep our Pacific
coast states, killing unprotected settlers, plundering banks and
treasuries of $40,000,000 of the people's savings and business
capital, and by destroying the producing power of commercial enterprise
reduce the community's income by twenty-eight millions more, the
catastrophe would startle the world.
If this stupendous disaster should threaten to recur the following
year and every year thereafter indefinitely, annually taking $67,000,000
from the earnings of the people, diminishing their invested wealth
and paralyzing their industries, the situation would be unbearable.
It would dominate the minds of men, women and children. All else
would be forgotten in their preparation for defense.
_Forest fire destruction is a danger in every way as real and immediate
as riot or invasion, equally measurable in losses to us today and
more far reaching in effect upon future prosperity. Although less
sensational, it demands no less prompt action._
THE ACTION WE MUST TAKE
The foregoing facts prove that our present forest policy is unprofitable
to the state and its citizens. What, then, is the remedy?
At first thought it may seem that the responsibility for this lies
with the man who controls the land, the timber owner and lumberman.
He does have his part to play, which is discussed elsewhere in
this booklet. But he will not, indeed cannot, do so until the rest
of us play ours. The community must not only coöperate, but in
some directions must act first, because from the beginning the
lumberman is governed by many conditions which are fixed by the
people. It is for the people to make these conditions reasonably
favorable so that he will have neither excuse nor incentive for
failing to conform to them.
In this coöperation the people should not be expected to grant
privileges which are not for their own advantage also. Nor should
they hesitate to coöperate if it is to their advantage, merely
because it is also a help to the lumberman. It is natural that the
public should disincline to assume any further burden to enrich the
timber owner. Were this the sale object of forest protection it would
be fair to leave it to him. But it is the height of bad economy to
obstruct or refuse to help him in handling forest resources to our
best advantage. Whether he gains or loses is merely incidental to
us, but whether we gain or lose is of very great importance.
FIRST STEP IS TO STOP FOREST FIRES
Obviously reduction of the forest fire hazard is the most urgent
problem. Not only is fire the greatest destroyer of existing forests,
but it also discourages investment in reforestation. The public has
a right to expect the lumberman to adopt every safeguard against
it in his operations. Nevertheless, the first step to encourage
him in this is to reduce the appalling carelessness with fire in
which the people of the West are the worst offenders in the world
today.
Forest fires are almost always unnecessary. They usually result
from a neglect of consideration for injury and distress to others
which is not shown by the American people in any other connection.
The traveler or resident in forest regions simply fails to realize
that his own welfare and that of countless others requires the
same precaution not to let fire escape, and the same activity in
extinguishing fires he discovers, that are accorded as a matter
of course in cities and towns. In reality they are more important.
A San Francisco can burn down and it is soon replaced. Insurance
and capital come to the rescue, labor is employed, and business
is resumed. _But when the forest burns, industry dies and labor is
driven away empty handed._ It is a big price to pay for neglecting
the slight effort required to prevent it.
Fairly good fire laws are on our statute books. Presumably they
were intended to prevent fires. Yet almost every forest community
sees fire after fire set through ignorance, carelessness or purpose,
and so far from punishing the offenders accords them every privilege
of business and society. In cities, however insignificant the damage,
arson leads to the penitentiary. A forest fire may destroy millions and
the cause not even be investigated. If, aggravated by a particularly
inexcusable case of malice or carelessness, some property holder
(seldom the people) secures an arrest, acquittal is practically
certain because the community considers the matter none of its
business. Then the value of the fire law is at an end in that region.
Certainly we cannot expect the timber owner to protect our forest
interests until we ourselves respect and at least attempt to enforce
our forest laws.
PATROL SERVICE ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL
But necessary as is better public sentiment, we must also have
practical machinery for enforcing the laws and for stopping the fires
that do start. Just as a city is safeguarded best by an organized
fire department, so the forest can be protected effectively only by
trained men who know the work. And the man who prevents the most
fires is the man who is looking for them, not the man who goes
after the fire is under way.
Theodore Roosevelt says: "I hold as first among the tasks before
the states and the nation in their respective shares in forest
conservation the organization of efficient fire patrols and the
enactment of good fire laws on the part of the states."
The National Conservation Commission reports: "Each state within
whose boundaries forest fires are working grave injury, and that
means every forest state, must face the fact squarely that to keep
down forest fires needs not merely a law upon the statute books,
but an effective force of men actually on the ground to patrol
against fire."
We all know that few disastrous fires start under conditions which
prevent their control. Usually they spring from some of the many
small, apparently innocent fires which burn unnoticed until wind
and hot weather fan them into action. It is far cheaper to put
them out in the incipient stage than to fight them later, perhaps
unsuccessfully until after great damage has been done. And if fighting
is necessary, it is of the highest importance to have it led by
competent, experienced men. Moments count, and bad judgment is
expensive.
Most western states already have laws regulating the use of fire
for clearing during the dry season. To accomplish this with safety
and without hardship requires fire wardens to issue permits and
help with the burning if necessary.
Public knowledge that there is someone to enforce the law tends
to restrain the dangerous class. Still more useful is the service
of fire wardens in agitating the fire question and keeping before
forest residents the advantage of their coöperation.
CO-OPERATION WITH PRIVATE OWNERS DESIRABLE
In fire patrol, especially, the state and the lumberman must work
together. It is reasonable that the timber owner should contribute
to the protection of his property. He also has peculiar facilities
for getting the work done well and cheaply. As a rule he is willing
to do his part. In 1910 the Washington Forest Fire Association and
other timber owners in that state paid out $300,000 for patrol
and other fire work. The Coeur d'Alene, Clearwater, Potlatch and
Pend d'Oreille Timber Protective associations spent over $200,000
in Idaho. Oregon timbermen spent approximately $130,000. Figures
are not available for Montana and California, but probably the
same proportion holds.
Thorough support by the state is necessary to make private work
effective. The men employed must have official authority to enforce
the law. The dangerous element does not respect a movement which
nominally represents only the property owner. The people in general
do not aid it as much as they do one in which they also share.
Therefore, it is necessary to have state facilities for coöperating
in the organization, authorization and supervision of all forest
patrols.
LIBERAL APPROPRIATION A GOOD INVESTMENT
But to stop here is like attempting to protect a city from fire
merely by giving its factory owners the right to maintain watchmen.
We want to provide for the greatest possible advantage to the people
through the timber owner's desire to protect his own property,
but any forest policy which ends with this is hopelessly weak.
We cannot afford to leave any matter of public welfare wholly to
the wisdom and philanthropy of private enterprise. If we expect
our paramount interest in forest and water resources to be looked
out for properly, we must pay for it just as we do for all other
protection we get through organized government. Nor should we forget
that the timber owner helps us again in this, for he pays taxes
as well as the cost of his private patrol.
There are also many regions where timber values do not warrant
patrol, but where the safety of other property, and of life, demand
both patrol and fire fighting. Here the state owes its citizens
protection. Moreover, one of the weakest points in our present
system everywhere is lack of police authority to apprehend violators
of the fire laws. The private warden cannot successfully arrest
or prosecute offenders, and everybody knows it. Most fires start
through violation of law. To prevent them the law must be respected,
and to accomplish this there must be state officers who can and
will apprehend offenders without fear or favor.
Any western state can well afford to spend $100,000 a year for
a forest fire service which will prevent a loss of fifty times
that sum. The cost is imperceptible by the citizen, his benefit
immediate. _Forest protection is the cheapest form of prosperity
insurance a timbered state can buy._
REFORESTATION
Although it does not pay to burn up our forests, it does pay to use
them. _The faster we can replace them with new ones, the quicker
this profit can be made with safety._ Forest land is community
capital. To let it lie idle is as wasteful as destruction. And
we must also remember that the day is coming when our forested
streams must do a hundred times their present duty, and when the
lumber consumer's question may not be "What must I pay for a board?"
but "Can I get a board at all?" We must have new forests coming
as the old ones go.
The Federal Government is practicing forestry in the lands controlled
by the Forest Service. _Why should the states not do the same thing
with their school and tax deed lands? Intelligent care of timbered
school land, selling the timber only under regulations which will
insure reforestation, would realize as much today and in the long
run pay a thousand per cent in dividends for the education of our
children and our children's children._
Further than this, there should be legislation to permit the state
to solidify its forest lands by exchange, when advisable, and to
authorize the purchase of cut-over lands. The eventual profit in
this is certain to be great, and nothing will do more to interest
the public and private owners in reforestation. It is the history or
all countries that forests are peculiarly profitable state property,
especially when, as is the case with us, it can be acquired cheaply.
It is a sound and well-proved policy that it is well for the state to
own lands which are not adapted for permanent individual development.
Forest lands constitute the ideal class, not only because the state
is in the best position to keep up their usefulness to the community,
but also because they will earn perpetual revenue far greater than
they could bring through taxation. They will pay back the cost and
interest, become increasingly valuable, and still pay dividends.
It is even more important that reforestation be secured on private
lands, because their area is greater than that owned by state and
government. With the encouragement which could be given the owner
without any undeserved concession, conditions would warrant him
in securing it. We have reached that stage in our development.
The exhaustion of timber in the country at large, the increase of
consumption, and our peculiar natural advantages, have combined
to promise adequate financial return. And the lumberman does not
want to go out of business unless he has to.
OBSTACLES TO PRIVATE EFFORT
To insure a second crop the lumberman has to lose more or less
money when he cuts the first. His methods must be more expensive
and he must forego present profits on trees he leaves. If he plants,
the outlay is considerable. But let us suppose he is willing to
do all this, not because he is a philanthropist but because he
wants more trees to run his mill some day.
It is a comparatively simple matter to get his second crop started.
American forestry has solved this problem fairly well. It is also
easy to calculate in most cases, beginning with the sale value of
cut-over land, using safe estimate of the next yield and the time
required to mature it, and setting a conservative future stumpage
value, that growing timber ought to be a profitable investment. If
that were all, we could leave the lumberman alone and count on
him to perpetuate our forests because it will pay him to do so.
But the whole calculation, consequently the public's interest as
well as his, is upset by two factors--the danger that his investment
will burn up and the practical certainty that taxes will eat up
all profit before the harvest. If he figures on fire protection
at his own expense against the hazard as it now exists, and the
tax burden on cut-over land which is indicated at present, his
engagement in forest growing will be negligible from the point of
view of public welfare. In some cases he may hold the land awhile,
in few can he afford to protect it, in still fewer is he justified
in actually doing anything to insure reforestation.
If a man proposes to build a factory or railroad in a community
the inhabitants usually encourage him. They do not refuse him fire
protection in the first place and then, if his plant burns down,
threaten to burn it again and keep up full taxation on the vacant
land. They offer every fair inducement to get the industry and keep
it flourishing. They expect it to pay its just share of taxation,
but want it to continue to do so as long as possible.
TAX NEW CROP WHEN HARVESTED
It has been shown that the first obstacle to reforestation of private
land can be removed only by supporting a fire patrol and creating
public sentiment which will reduce the number of fires. The second
is even more wholly in the hands of the people, for by the system
of taxation they impose they decide _whether it shall continue an
earning power and a tax source forever or be abandoned to become
a desert_; non-producing, non-taxable, and a menace to stream-flow.
Whether its owner has made money on the original crop has no bearing
on the result, nor has his being rich or poor, resident or alien.
Cutover land presents a distinct problem to him. He will and should
pay a full tax on its earning power, which will be demonstrated
when he successfully brings another crop to maturity. But he cannot
carry an investment for fifty years or more without return, with a
risk of total loss by fire up to the last moment, at a cost which
would bring him better profit in some other business.
These facts are recognized by all students of forestry. The following
authorities hold no brief for the lumberman. They approached the
subject solely from the side of the people:
Theodore Roosevelt: "Second only to good fire laws is the enactment
of tax laws which will permit the perpetuation of existing forests
by use."
National Conservation Commission: "Present tax laws prevent
reforestation of cut-over land and the perpetuation of existing
forests by use. An annual tax upon the land itself, exclusive of
the timber, and a tax upon the timber when cut is well adapted
to actual conditions of forest investment and is practicable and
certain. It would insure a permanent revenue from the forest in
the aggregate far greater than is now collected, and yet be less
burdensome upon the state and upon the owner. It is better from
every side that forest land should yield a moderate tax permanently
than that it should yield an excessive revenue temporarily, and
then cease to yield at all."
H. S. Graves, Chief Forester for the U. S.: "Private owners do
not practice forestry for one or more of three reasons: 1. The
risk of fire. 2. Burdensome taxation. 3. Low prices of products."
Professor Fairchild, tax expert, Yale University: "Forestry must
come some time, and its early coming is a thing greatly to be desired.
We can hardly hope to see the general practice of forestry as long
as the present methods of taxation continue. With regard to its
effect on revenue, there is little to be feared from the tax on
yield. It is equitable and certain. _If a tax at once equitable
and dependable is guaranteed, the business of forestry will not
need to ask special favors._"
CRYING NEED FOR DEFINITE STATE POLICY
To accomplish these reforms will take law-making and law-enforcing.
However well we study existing conditions and legislate upon the
premises they furnish, success depends upon competent application
of the laws and their improvement as conditions change. It is a
bitter reproof to us of the West that Eastern states, with forest
and water resources insignificant compared to ours, have gone so
much farther in securing the services of trained men to study these
questions and to guard both private and public interests. The very
first step should be to get competent trained state foresters who
will devise wise measures, protect us from unwise ones, and educate
lumbermen and public alike to the common need of action. We pay
cheerfully for every other kind of public service, for geologists,
veterinarians, insurance commissioners, barber examiners, and what
not. But the two things we must have--wood and water--we leave
pretty much to take care of themselves, and they aren't doing it
and never will.
_The essentials of a wise state forest policy, based not on theory
but on successful experience elsewhere, are as cheap as they are
simple._ Where tried they have never been abandoned. If they pay
elsewhere, can we afford not to try? Following is the framework
of a code demanded by the situation in every Western state. Some
already approach it, but none goes far enough:
ESSENTIALS OF EFFECTIVE STATE FOREST CODE
1. A State Board of Forestry selected with the single view of insuring
the most competent expert judgment on the matters with which it
deals. In other words, the board should not be political, but
appointment by the Governor should be restricted to responsible
representatives nominated by the interests most familiar with forest
management, such as state forest schools, lumbermen's associations,
forest fire associations, conservation associations and the resident
Federal forest service.
2. A trained state forester, wholly independent of politics. Executive
ability and practical forest knowledge should be considered essential,
also scientific training. He should have one or more assistants of
his own appointing.
3. A liberally supported forest fire service, in which the state
forester has ample latitude in coöperation, financial and otherwise,
with all other agencies in the same work.
4. A systematic study of forest conditions to afford basis of both
intelligent administration and desirable further legislation.
5. A system for active general popular education, with specific
advice to individuals in proper forest management.
6. Application of forestry principles to the management of state-owned
forest lands and the purchase of cut or burned over land better
suited for state than for private forestry. This is to furnish
educative examples of conservative management as well as to maintain
state revenue and proper forest conditions.
7. Improvement and strict enforcement of laws against fire and
trespass, with penalty for neglect to enforce them by any officer
who is paid to do so.
8. Encouragement of reforestation by assessing deforested land
annually on land value only, deferring taxation of forest growth
until its cutting furnishes income with which to meet the tax.
9. Thorough study of the subject of taxing standing timber, to
the end of securing a system which, by insuring a fair revenue
without enforcing bad forest management, will result in the greatest
community good.
DO IT NOW
_You, the average citizen of the West, are responsible for the
present situation and for its remedy._ Merely to agree that it is
unfortunate, and virtuously to condemn firebugs, careless lumbermen
and indifferent legislators, does not relieve you of the responsibility.
Neither will it protect you from the consequences. On the other hand,
the firebug will not fire if he knows it will not be tolerated. The
lumberman will adopt protective methods if you encourage him. The
legislator is glad to help in any way his constituents suggest.
_They are all only waiting for a word from you, whose welfare is
really at stake and from whom the word should come._
If any other principle of public safety--say suppression of fraud,
burglary or murder--was being so generally ignored, what would you
do? Would you not look up the laws of the state and find a way
of letting everyone connected with their enforcement know that you
expected them to be enforced? If you found laws or appropriations
inadequate, would you not see to it that every representative in
the legislature knew his constituents demanded improvement?
The legislator or public official is anxious to comply with the
people's wishes, but he must know what the people want. It is essential
to _let him know_ that you want a progressive and liberally supported
state policy that will save our immense forest wealth from needless
destruction.