l pay back the cost and
interest, become increasingly valuable, and still pay dividends.

It is even more important that reforestation be secured on private
lands, because their area is greater than that owned by state and
government. With the encouragement which could be given the owner
without any undeserved concession, conditions would warrant him
in securing it. We have reached that stage in our development.
The exhaustion of timber in the country at large, the increase of
consumption, and our peculiar natural advantages, have combined
to promise adequate financial return. And the lumberman does not
want to go out of business unless he has to.

OBSTACLES TO PRIVATE EFFORT

To insure a second crop the lumberman has to lose more or less
money when he cuts the first. His methods must be more expensive
and he must forego present profits on trees he leaves. If he plants,
the outlay is considerable. But let us suppose he is willing to
do all this, not because he is a philanthropist but because he
wants more trees to run his mill some day.

It is a comparatively simple matter to get his second crop started.
American forestry has solved this problem fairly well. It is also
easy to calculate in most cases, beginning with the sale value of
cut-over land, using safe estimate of the next yield and the time
required to mature it, and setting a conservative future stumpage
value, that growing timber ought to be a profitable investment. If
that were all, we could leave the lumberman alone and count on
him to perpetuate our forests because it will pay him to do so.

But the whole calculation, consequently the public's interest as
well as his, is upset by two factors--the danger that his investment
will burn up and the practical certainty that taxes will eat up
all profit before the harvest. If he figures on fire protection
at his own expense against the hazard as it now exists, and the
tax burden on cut-over land which is indicated at present, his
engagement in forest growing will be negligible from the point of
view of public welfare. In some cases he may hold the land awhile,
in few can he afford to protect it, in still fewer is he justified
in actually doing anything to insure reforestation.

If a man proposes to build a factory or railroad in a community
the inhabitants usually encourage him. They do not refuse him fire
protection in the first place and then, if his plant burns down,
threaten to burn it again and keep u