a practical and technical knowledge of forestry, and, in most cases, even of woodcraft, their work has been necessarily limited. From lack of training and experience they have been unable to create and put into execution a practical system of forest management for the lands under their control. Although unable to cope with the problems of management, they have been able in many instances to afford the reservations a fair degree of protection from fire and grazing.
As the forests of the reservations must eventually be utilized for their timber and other forest products, in order to make direct contributions to the national wealth, the work of management must go beyond that of simply protecting them from fire and grazing, even if this were afforded to the fullest degree possible.
They should be so managed that wherever the mature timber has material value it can be harvested and sold. The utilization of the forest products, however, must not interfere with the perpetuation of the forest. The cutting must be so conducted that the forest be maintained in the best possible condition as to reproduction and growth consistent with economy. In order to do this it is necessary that the reservations be under the control of practical and trained foresters.
It is extremely gratifying to know that within the past few months the direct management of the national reservations, so far as it relates to questions of practical and economic forestry, has been transferred to the Division of Forestry of the Department of Agriculture, where they will receive attention from trained foresters. Working plans will be made for all the reservations, and the prospects are extremely flattering that on these 46,800,000 acres of reserved forest lands there will develop a system of American forestry that will have far-reaching influence on our future prosperity.
At first thought it may appear that it is not necessary to make forest reservations for the purpose of conserving the timber and lesser forest products in a country so splendidly wooded as the United States. When we consider, however, that, from the most reliable sources of information that we have, the amount of timber consumed exceeds the amount normally produced by the forests, we must know that the excess of consumption is at the expense of the main wood capital. In many instances this decrease is not so much on account of decrease in area as on account of decrease in productive capacity of the forests themselves.
Having such a splendid and large original supply to draw upon, we consume much more wood per capita than any other nation. At our present rate of consumption the most reliable authority that we have places the present supply as sufficient for our requirements for about fifty years, without taking into consideration the annual increment of the forests during this period.
