mountain sides from which the important streams of the East flow, there is a direct and concrete result to be attained. The nation is to be given a supply of hard

wood from which to make the freight cars that transport its goods, the vehicles in which it rides, the kegs in which its supplies are stored, the furniture for its

houses, the coffins in which its members are buried.

These things and the thousands of others that are made from hardwood are largely dependent upon the Appalachians. For the past few years more than half the hardwood of the nation has come from this region. The percentage is increasing every year for, throughout such states as Ohio, Indiana and Michigan from which great quantities of hardwood formerly came, the supply is nearly exhausted. The lands that grew the former supply are being turned into

farms and will never again produce hardwood. The only hardwood lands that will survive are those that are not valuable for farm lands. This leaves only the eastern mountains. Here must the hardwood supply of the future be grown. Here, then, has the nation decided to farm the native growth of these otherwise worthless lands and by so doing turn them into a resource of untold value.

All of which leads up to the biggest thing in the present movement which is tree farming for profit. Uncle Sam is

THE WILD.

looking far into the future and sees the time when he may depend upon the six million acres he is to buy in the Appalachians to yield him an annual return of five dollars to the acre or a total of $30,000,000 a year. He knows it can be done because it has been done already by half a dozen of the nations of Europe. He knows just how it was done in each case and has the advantage of the experience of all those nations. He will grow the same kinds of trees more easily than they were grown in Europe and he expects a readier market by the time his

crop is sufficiently mature to cut and

sell.

Prussia, for instance, has a forest of 7,000,000 acres. It is very similar to what our Appalachian region would be if we added to it some of the pine lands further south. In 1865 these forests yielded a net profit of 72 cents an acre. In 1900 the profit was $1.58. In 1904 it was $2.50 and this year it is expected to be around $5.

In Saxony there is a forest of 430,000 acres in spruce closely comparable with the spruce forests that this nation expects to develop in the White Mountains. Last year Saxony spent $3 an acre in caring for this forest. Its net return and profit was $5.30. In Wurttemberg the state forests are yielding a net profit of $6 to the acre. The average return from privately owned forests in Germany which have not been cared for during as long a period as the state forests is $2.40 an acre. The forests of Germany were as badly cut over and mismanaged as ours before the present system was adopted. The increases in yield are greater today than they have been at any other period.

In Switzerland all forest lands whether publicly or privately owned are under the control of the government. No man may cut timber off his own land except under the direction of a forest officer. Young timber must not be harmed. When the land is cut clean it must be reforested within three years. All the farm land is used in Switzerland. Floods must be prevented for the protection of the farm lands. Forests mean the very life of the people. The Swiss could never have developed into the nation they are but for an early adoption of forestry regulations.

In Switzerland many of the best forests are owned by the cities. The city of Zurich has a highly developed forest that has been protected since 1680. It now returns a net profit of $12 an acre and supports the city, no taxes being necessary. Forests that pay from five to ten dollars an acre are the rule rather than the exception. The forests are a great national resource as well as a protection. Those upon which most money is spent pay greatest net returns. Experience is pointing to the advisability of taking greater and greater care of the forests

France has gotten into the forestry game in comparatively recent times. The great floods from

which she suffered drove her to it. The reclamation of her sand dune stretches was another occasion for action. The sand dunes are now producing good timber. The floods are decreasing and the new forests are yielding two and three dollars per acre revenue.

Austria gets an annual revenue of $5,000,000 from comparatively unimportant forests, Sweden profits to the extent of $2,000,000. Great Britain has succeeded in placing the great forests of

India on a basis where they pay to the crown a direct revenue of $3,300,000. The examples of profits from forests and the manner of getting them are so abundant that the United States has but to pursue the beaten trails to attain it.

With the bringing of the national forests into the east the new policy is to be adopted. By citing the experience of other nations and the fact that the more spent on forestry the greater the profits, the friends of the movement to better handling are expecting such appropriations from Congress as to enable this country also to secure those profits.

Already is Secretary Wilson of the Department of Agriculture referring to the fact that twenty of the forests of this

nation are now on a basis of profit yielding. The Bitter Root forest in Montana is now paying a profit of $50,000 a year as is tl.e Coconino forest in Arizona. There are eighty other forests that will soon be on a paying basis. This leaves fifty forests that cannot be made to pay for many years and some of these may never pay directly for they are watershed protections that grow no marketable timber.

Some of the profits will probably be

spent in developing the forests of the East in re-establishing the native hardwoods. These woods in the well watered East grow much more rapidly than do any of the western forests and in two score of years the entire region may be covered with hardwood ready for the market just at the time when the industries will be most needing it. It is the new scheme of development in a forestry era. The first great step has been taken toward working it out.