To Be firowers of Troes

"Our principal business is no longer the manufacturer of lumber," remarked a speaker ata recent national convention of lumber manufacturers; "our principal business today is the growing of trees."

And that statement is amazingly true. When sawmill men get together in any part of this country today to talk business, they talk more about trees than they do about lumber. What a mighty'change has taken place injust a few short years !

In the old days-that literally means from ten to one hundred years back-there was no talk of tree growing; no thiught of tree farms. They told each other how much stumpage they had left, and how much longer this timber would supply their mills. Hundreds of clear-eyed, brightbrained men all through the nation's lumber industry, did their thinking along this line, cut their timber, tore down their mills, junked their machinery, and moved along to other timber patches, or to other climes. I can name a legion of such men.

Today there are many mill and timber men who will tell you how far back they saw this perpetual timber supply coming, but if you'll check up you'll find they are kidding themselves-and you. Few were those who had even a forward glimpse of what could be done torvard commercial timber growing; while a constant supply of logs from the same land was merely a will-o-the-wisp indulged in by few and discredited by rr:'any, That magic term-selective logging-with all that it implies, was like sulpha and penicillin; it hadn't come along yet. A few men knew and practiced it two generations back, but not more than a handful of men believed in it enough to start doing it, until the last decade or two at the most.

But when the idea finally drove home, it was as contagious as human enthusiasm. First a fewgotinto the reforesting game, then many, then the multitude. Todav, as the old song went"Everybody's Doing It." There was a time, say thirty years ago, when any man who really believed the things about timber growing that we all know norv, could have parlayed a hundred dollars into a million. Those times are gone now; but the opportunity prevailed for a long while.

And so today the sawmill and timber men of this nation are genuine growers of trees, going continually farther and deeper into the practical practice of creating and providing a perpetual supply of logs for their mills.

Not long since a mill man threatened with a strike remarked: "f believe I would make more profit on the growth of my timber than I am making cutting it into lumber, so a shutdor,vn has no terrors for me from a financial standpoint." There are numerous others r,r'ho are in that same position. Another sawmill man recently shut down his mill and dismantled it, while still making money cutting up his timber. He figured that if he would let his trees grow for ten years he could then rebuild a mill and go to cutting, and be far ahead financially of n'hat he would have been had he continued the present operation of his plant.

Specific examples of the miracle of tree growth are too numerous to be listed. They are found everywhere. There are more of them in the South where the Pines grou' fast than in other territories, but even the slower growing species of commercial woods are proving without question that tree growing pays, and that a commercial treesupply can be perpetuated almost anywhere trees normally grolv.

And with each year that passes from this time on, this situation will be intensified.

To be gro\vers of trees ! An inspiring philosophy !

San Frcrncisco Lumbermen's Club Christmcrs Pcrty

The annual Christmas Party of the San Francisco Lumbermen's Ciub will be held at the Palace Hotel at noon, December 20. Particulars of the program will appear in the December 15 issue.