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Show "TO LOVERS OF THE FOREST" Addressing the Izaak Walton League, A. L. Osborn, of Oakosh, Wis., lifelong lumberman and a director of National Lumber Manufacturers' Manu-facturers' Association, said: "By what token should lumbermen be abused for the removal of trees for a useful purpose, and the newspapers escape condemnation condem-nation for the use of so large an amount of forest growth? We want our papers, we want our homes. Those who provide the raw material ma-terial are, it seems t me, to be commended rather than abused. "Who would think it a sin to enter a ripe field of grain to harvest har-vest it? Who can hold that the cutting of mature trees to be put into service should never have been? "Conservation of our forest growth means not hoarding, but its wise use. "The solution of the fire problem is the real conservation issue. Next to, it and quite important is the problem of taxation. In cities, property is taxed for fire protection. Timber generally has been taxed to death, and the owner left to do his own fighting, to protect it against frie. "We have been treating our timber as a mine: a ntaural resource re-source to be destroyed and not reproduced. We must treat it as a crop., "Congress hastens to appropriate $75,C'00,000 annually that a )'oy-riding public may scorch along paved roads through fire-scarred and treeless barrens. States join in the mad revelry of spending, but hesitate about paltry appropriations for fire wardens and the protection pro-tection of the trees that we have left. Nero fiddled while Rome! burned. Congress and our legislature fiddle as our potential forests J go up in flames." |