Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/318

312 naval stores, the production of which renders the longleaf pine the most important timber tree of the South. No general statements of large supplies of timber still available can disguise the gravity of the situation which now confronts the lumber industry. The solution of the problem can come only through a change in the policy and in the methods of the lumberman.

The history of lumbering in the United States has not differed essentially from that of the same industry in other countries. In the early days, the chief obstacle of the settler was the forest, while the growing need both of cleared land and of timber kept pace with the advance of colonization. The multiplication of demands for forest products developed feverish activity in the conversion of trees into money, while the methods employed in the harvesting of timber were the natural outcome of existing conditions. Forestry, with its perpetual but conservative returns, offered no financial inducement to the lumberman until the first crop of timber began to fail. With the forest stretched before him, large enough to feed his saw-mill for his lifetime, he had no need to consider the potential value of cut-over lands, often allowing them to revert in default of taxes to the state. His methods of lumbering were significant of his attitude. Skillful and effective in the cutting and transport of logs and the manufacture of lumber, he showed utter obliviousness to the productive capacity of the lumbered areas. Abuse of the lumberman is unmerited and unreasonable. His utilization of natural resources has been accomplished by mistakes similar to those incurred in the development of other industries in this country. The necessity for modification of his methods involves no emotional considerations. The question is one simply of the best business policy.

The attitude of the lumberman towards the source of his industry has so far been generally similar to that of the miner towards the gold mine. He has considered the value of the forest to lie only in the merchantable timber it contains, just as the mine is worthless when the end of the vein is reached. He has cut and burned with complete disregard of the welfare of immature trees, with the result that he has deprived the future of a supply of timber many times the value of the material he has actually utilized. There has been incalculable waste, which in some cases could have been avoided through slight expense, in others simply by the exercise of reasonable care, and which has hastened enormously the approaching exhaustion of the lumber supply. No one realizes more keenly than does the lumberman that the time for forestry has fully arrived.

The influence of the general adoption of practical forestry upon the lumber industry will be felt gradually, but it will eventually