CHAPTER VIII

Gov

FORESTRY AND GOVERNMENT

OVERNMENT may have an interest in forestry matters in two different ways: It may be the owner of forests, or it may find that the general welfare of the country is seriously affected by the manner in which the forests are managed, and therefore desire to regulate such management to a greater or less extent.

As everybody knows, the government of the United States has from its incipiency been the greatest land-owner of the country. A very large part of its land was and still is covered with original forests. The policy of Congress has been until very lately to dispose of these public lands to private parties to be utilized for agricultural, grazing, mining, or lumbering purposes, as the case might be. At first the lands were sold outright, a policy which resulted in large tracts going into the hands of speculators. Then various devices were tried for making sure of the lands being taken up by actual settlers. The most important of these devices was the Homestead Act of 1862, with its amendments, by which patents to not to exceed 160 acres are issued, without payments except a

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small registration fee, to any settler after he has resided on the land and improved it for five years. Large tracts were also granted to various railway companies, in aid of their building railroads through unsettled territory, and all of the new States carved out of the public domain were given a part of the lands within their limits. The grants to States were mostly coupled with the condition that they were to be used in aid of various public institutions to be established, such as schools, universities, agricultural colleges, and so forth. Large grants were also made for drainage purposes, and the courts have held that the States had the right to judge how much of the revenue derived from them was needed for that object, and that they might divert the rest to something else. So this class of lands, at least, is held by the States virtually without being burdened with any trust. The States have mostly followed the example of the general government and disposed of these lands to private parties as fast as a demand was found for them. The result is that the older States which were benefited by these grants have but little public land left, while the younger ones still have considerable tracts, much of it not yet surveyed and patented. Suppose that a State should decide to retain possession of such public lands as are fit for the maintenance of forests, and manage them as such. What objects could be held in view by such a policy?

Clearly, the State might proceed just as a private

owner would, and attempt by proper silvicultural treatment to derive the greatest possible revenue from them. This policy is followed by many of the European states where forestry most flourishes, and it is well known that several of the states of the German Empire, as well as France and other countries, derive a very considerable part of their revenue from such public forests.

The objections to such a course are obvious, both from an economic and a political standpoint. They are the same objections which are usually urged against the conduct of a business enterprise by public authorities. Raising timber and other forest products for the market is not a proper governmental function. It smacks of paternalism and socialism, and is opposed to the settled policy of the American people. It would be folly to deny the weight of these objections. Without entering upon the controversy as to how far the adoption of socialistic measures might be wise, we may say that no American government will, for many years to come, enter upon the business of forestry simply as a convenient means of raising a revenue.

But there may be other reasons why it should be expedient to permanently maintain public forests, so that the revenue becomes a mere incident to more important objects. If a State, or the federal government, should become convinced that the continued existence of forests capable of producing commercial timber and other forest products was absolutely demanded by the public welfare,

and that private enterprise could not be relied upon to maintain such forests, then the policy of public forest maintenance might well be resorted to, notwithstanding the objections mentioned above.

I dare say that none but the extreme followers of Adam Smith would deny that government ought to shape its measures so as to prevent, if possible, the decay of so important a series of industries as those depending upon forests for their raw material. The majority of the American people, which favor a system of protective tariff, will not object to a reasonable internal policy of protection to so vital a source of national wealth as the forests, and if the people become convinced that nothing but government management can assure the permanency of forests, the bugaboo of "paternalism" or "socialism" will not terrify them.

Now, I am very far from arguing that it has been demonstrated that, taking the country as a whole, private forest management cannot be made a business success. I believe that even under present conditions it can, in many cases, be made to pay, and that as soon as by proper legislation the problems of fire protection and taxation, which will be discussed in the next chapter, have been solved, it will pay well in all localities where it is proper that forests should grow. But even if this is true, as the future will undoubtedly show, it will be wise to have by the side of private forest enterprises a system of public forests, managed according to the most approved business principles.

A forest, under reasonable natural and economic conditions, can be made the source of a fair, steady income proportioned to the investment. But like all safe investments, very large profits need not be expected. It takes more self-restraint than the average, speculative American has at his command in times of "boom" and business activity, when high profits are being made on every hand, to resist the temptation of turning one's growing timber prematurely into cash and investing the proceeds elsewhere. For after a certain age a forest lends itself very readily to being made cash. Although the trees may still be far from the age when they would be cut most profitably, they will yield a large quantity of lumber and find a ready market. If the owner should be in financial difficulties, the felling of his growing forest would be one of the best means of obtaining the money to save him. In Europe much of the private forest property is protected by entails and other legal devices to prevent waste. Still greater tracts are ancestral estates and their owners are restrained by sentimental reasons from destroying them, but even there it has been found by experience that private ownership cannot be trusted to prevent an excessive diminution of forest-covered area, nor to insure a rational treatment of forests. For this reason many of the European states are gradually purchasing more and more of the private forests for public management. In the United States we will probably find, for the same reasons, that