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We find it interesting at times to go back over some of our old editorials printed a generation or more ago, and read the efforts we then made at foretelling the future. Sometimes they were far afield. But sometimes they have proven excellent prophecy.

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For instance, twenty-five years ago we had some observations in this column concerning glue, and what it might mean to the lumber and millwork industry in days to come. That was one prophecy that fias worked out.

We said in that column: "Glue has come as a mighty and undisguised blessing to the industry, and as yet is only in its infancy. What it shall be, no man knoweth. That we will soon be building boards of all widths, thicknesses, and lengths, built-up and glued-up, there can be no doubt.

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"There is a natural limitation to how wide you can get beautiful boards from a tree. There is practical$r no limitation on built-up boards, strong, non-warping, non-cracking, practical for thousands of uses. Keep your eye on glue. It is the greatest friend t:ru"*, conservation has.

"Cheap wood, defective wood, waste odds and ends, will be built together and glued together and made into powerful cores, and the outer covers will be beautifully sliced veneers glued on to the cores, making a stout and lbvely product-all wood. Built-up wood is the fastest growing thing in the lumber industry. 'We have practically no waste any more,' said the head of a big millwork plarit the other day. And a visit to his plant showed he spoke thetruth."

So there was one example of accurate predicting of future things. We have discovered through trial and error that a combination of wood and glue and ingenuity can be translated into valuabl'e merchandise of a thousand kinds, never even dreamed of a generation or more ago. Look around you wherever building is being done, and witness the truth of that statement. One of the greatest physical factors in saving wood-is glue.

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Plenty of stories printed in this column long ago proved to be duds. For instance, the newspapers carried and we printed a generation back a story about the mighty jungleforest in the Amazon River country in South America called the Matto Grosso, which is bigger in one endless sweep than the entire United States. According to that story efforts were to be made to invade that dark wilderness and take. from it a vast supply of timber. There were countless trees of many sizes and species, according to that old story, enough to supp$ the entire world with hardwoods and cabinet woods for ages if they could be gotten out. Fortunately we were quoting and not predicting. t<*,F

Said the story: "Disease, reptiles, innumerable insects, and the world's worst jungle protects these forests now." Guess they still do, for we have heard or r€ad no more about invading that jungle. And, since we now raise our own commercial trees and plan to do so for all time to come, it is most unlikely that in the foreseeabl'e future even the hardiest of adventurers will ever attempt to go logging in the Matto Grosso.

But where this column failed most miserably in its efforts to look into the lumber future was with regard to future forests. We just did not see the truth about commercial timber growing, although we had been exposed to the opinions on that subject of various men who did. It looked to us as though the lumber industry would eventually shrink to one of very small proportions for sheer lack of trees to cut. We have confessed this fact before. We were "of little faith." ***

\Me remember back about thirty years ago that we asked Mr. Henry Hardtner, the father of forestry.in the South, if it would be profitable for a man to buy cut-over land and raise a crop of timber on it? Mr.. Hardtner said no. He said the pyramiding cost would make. the timber hopelessly high by the time it could be marketed. He thougtrt that only the mill man with cut-over land he could not sell, and with a reasonable stand of timber ahead of his mill, could raise trees successfully.

That man, he said, *r.l .1. Lra in his possession and the perpetuation of his mill for an added incentive, can raise timber profitably, having no cost but that of foresting. If he leaves immature trees when he logs, said Mr. Hardtner then protects the growing crop, cutting the larger trees as they develop and letting a continual new crop grow, he can perpetuate a milling operation, and it wrll pay. That was one of the first and best talks on the subject of tree growing the writer of this piece ever heard. But it took a long time for the philosophy to sink into a thick-editorial skull' * * *

Of course there have been mighty changes in the eco-