PROTECTING EXISTING FORESTS AND GROWING NEW ONES, FROM THE STANDPOINTOF THE PUBLIC AND THAT OF THE LUMBERMAN, WITH AN OUTLINE OF TECHNICALMETHODS.
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
WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT AND WHY
The object of this booklet is to present the elementary principlesof forest conservation as they apply on the Pacific coast fromMontana to California.
There is a keen and growing interest in this subject. Citizens ofthe western states are beginning to realize that the forest is acommunity resource and that its wasteful destruction injures theirwelfare. Lumbermen are coming to regard timber land not as a mine tobe worked out and abandoned, but as a possible source of perpetualindustry. They find little available information, however, as tohow these theories can be reduced to actual practice. The WesternForestry and Conservation Association believes it can render no morepractical service than by being the first to outline for publicuse definite workable methods of forest management applicable towestern conditions.
A publication of this length can give little more than an outline,but attempt has been made either to answer the most obvious questionswhich suggest themselves to timber owners interested in forestpreservation or to guide the latter in finding their own answers.Only the most reliable conservative information has been drawnon, 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 forestpolicy is included, also a chapter on tree growing by farmers.The first presents the economic relation of forest preservationto public welfare, with its problems of fire prevention, taxationand reforestation; for the use of writers, legislators, voters,or others desiring to investigate this subject of growing publicconcern. It is based upon the conclusions of the best unprejudicedauthorities who have approached these problems from the publicstandpoint.
In the technical chapters on forest management and its possibilities,the author accepts full responsibility for conclusions drawn exceptwhen otherwise noted. To the Forest Service, however, is entitled thecredit for collecting practically all the growth and yield figuresupon which these conclusions are based. Especial acknowledgement isdue to Mr. J. F. Kümmel for information on tree planting.
In concluding this preface, the author regrets that the bookletwhich it introduces was necessarily written hurriedly, a page ortwo 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 containsimmediately available than to await a doubtful opportunity to rewriteit.
What This Book Is About, and Why.