American In the practice of forestry in America the general principles of management worked out in Europe through centuries of experience are being taken up as rapidly as economic and other conditions per mit. For many reasons, however, European practices cannot be adopted as they stand, but must be modified to suit American conditions. The use in America of forms of management different from those in vogue in Europe is made necessary by the highly developed and specialized methods and machinery of American lumbering, the extremely moderate price and enormous supply of low-grade forest products, such as firewood and the cheaper kinds of lum ber, the difficulties attendant on getting out much of the timber, transportation facilities which make most places in the country much less dependent on the local supply than is the case abroad, the vast number of small holdings of forest land, and the high taxes on forest property. The fundamentals of American prac tice are protection from fire, conservative lum bering, and care of the young growth. Ameri can practice has not aimed to secure a sus tained annual yield; nor to adopt as they stand European systems of cutting; nor to maintain permanent forces of laborers or permanent log ging-road systems. The American forester has to deal with different species, as well as differ ent conditions, and in a large measure is com pelled to work out his own methods. In the cutting of timber generally, the method hitherto practised by the lumberman, with such modifi cations as will insure the perpetuation of the forest, is still adhered to. This method is the selection of the large and the defective trees and the inferior species for cutting, the young growth of preferred species being preserved during the logging operation and sufficient large trees being left to restock the area or to furnish protection for the young growth as the case may be.
Forestry has made great prog ress in America in the last 15 or 20 years. During that time it has been built up from almost nothing to a point where it is recognized as being of vital importance to the continued prosperity of the country. The technical ment and training of the American forester have been brought to a very high standard; many of the essentials of American practice have been worked out; great advances have been made in the study of conditions peculiar to America; and intensive and specialized in vestigations have been made of the problems of forest management and wood utilization. The investigative work of American foresters now bids fair to rival in accomplishment the work which has been under way in Europe for several centuries. In the 25 years since the first forest land was dedicated by the govern ment to the practice of forestry, a tremendous advance has been made in the forest policy of the nation. In the beginning, the creation of the national forests met with much opposition, due chiefly to the ideas of speculation prevalent in the great timber regions of the West and to the fear of special interests that public owner ship of the forests would interfere with their plans. This opposition has not died away alto gether, and at times manifests itself strongly, but it no longer has any considerable popular support and no longer appears in open attempts to do away with government ownership. It is now reduced to indirect attacks on details of the forest policy. A national forest policy has
been firmly established, based upon government ownership and control of a sufficient amount of forest land of the United States to assure a continuous and perpetual supply of timber. See FOREST FIRES ; FOREST LAWS ; FOREST SCHOOLS ; FORESTRY ASSOCIATIONS.
Bibliography.— Beveridge, Albert J.,
National Forest Service' (Speech in the Senate •of the 'United States, Friday, 22 "Feb. 1907, Washington, 1907) ; Bruncken, Ernest, 'North American Forests and Forestry; their Relation to the Life of the American People' (New York 1908); Compton, Wilson,