Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest - Protecting Existing Forests and Growing New Ones, from the Standpoint of the Public and That of the Lumberman, with an Outline of Technical Methods by Edward Tyson Allen
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page 7 of 160 (04%)
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stopped the forest fire evil. Other countries have found a way
to make forest land continue to grow forest. Consequently we can. It is clearly only a question of whether it is worth while. Let us consider this question, not only in its relation to posterity or to the lumberman, but from the standpoint of the average citizen of the West today. CHAPTER I FORESTRY AND THE PUBLIC TIMBER MEANS PAY CHECKS _Forest wealth is community wealth._ The public's interest in it is affected very little by the passage of timber lands into private ownership, for all the owner can get out of them is the stumpage value. The people get everything else. Our forests earn nothing except by being cut and shipped to the markets of the world. Of the price received for them usually much less than a fifth is received by the owner. Nearly all goes to pay for labor and supplies here at home. _Even now, when the western lumber industry is insignificant compared to what it will be soon, it brings over $125,000,000 a year into these five states._ This immense revenue flows through every artery of labor, commerce and agriculture; in the open farming countries as well as in the timbered districts. It is shared alike by laborer, |
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