upon the report of the Forest Examiner, determine
whether an individual timber sale is forestry or forest destruction.
This is the central question in the administration of the National
Forests from the national point of view.

The principal objects of the conditions laid down for a timber sale are
always the reproduction of the forest and its safety against fire.
Natural reproduction from self-sown seed is almost invariably the result
desired; and so the question of the seed trees to be left, and how they
are to be located or spaced, is fundamental, unless there is ample young
growth already on the ground. In the latter case this young growth must
not be smashed or bent by throwing the older trees on top of it, or
against it, and the young saplings bent down by the felled tops must be
promptly released.

In order to avoid danger to the young growth already present or to be
secured, as well as to protect the older trees from fires, the slash
produced in lumbering, the tops lopped from the trees up to and beyond
the highest point to which the lumbermen are required to take the logs,
must be satisfactorily disposed of--either by scattering it thinly over
the ground, by piling and burning, or often by piling alone.

These and many other conditions of sale must be studied out in a form
adapted to each particular case, and must be discussed with the men who
propose to buy, who often have wise and practical suggestions to make.

Similar questions on a less important scale present themselves and must
be answered in the matter of small timber sales, and of timber given
without charge under free-use permits to settlers and others.

When the terms of a contract of sale have been worked out and accepted
and the timber has been sold, then the Forest Assistant has charge of
the extremely interesting task of marking the trees that are to be cut,
in accordance with these terms. Usually this is done by marking all the
trees which are to be felled, but sometimes by marking only the trees
which are to remain.

The marking is usually done by blazing each tree and stamping the
letters "U. S." upon the blaze with a Government marking axe or hatchet.
It must be done in such a way that the loggers will have no excuse
either for cutting an unmarked tree or leaving a marked tree uncut, or
_vice versa_, as the case may be. The marking may be carried out by the
Rangers and Forest Guards under supervision of the Forest Assistant, or
in diffi