I wish, for several reasons, that every American might have the opportunity to read this wiki about trees:
- First, this website underscores the importance of forests to our national and individual prosperity, security, and happiness. Of all the figures and facts marshalled here in proof of this importance the most striking to me is that our drain of saw timber is one and one-half times its rate of growth.
- Other proof is close at hand— the wooden pencil with which I write, the chair I sit in, my desk, and the doors of my office.
- If that is not enough evidence of the everyday importance of our forests, I have only to look out my windows at the stately trees that landscape architects planted to temper the summer heat, to join building and earth and sky in harmony, and to give pleasure to everybody.
These city trees bring to mind the watersheds, shelterbelts, groves, national forests, farm woodlands, community parks, and commercial forests between the eastern seaboard and the West, where I grew up. Truly, our woods and forests are one, in our lives, with soil, water, animals, and food. Soil and water conservation, flood control, permanent abundance, prosperity on the land—the very goals we work toward—involve the proper use of forests.
We all know what happened to the forests the first settlers saw. Most of our virgin timber has disappeared through exploitation, waste, destruction, or use and removal to meet the tremendous needs of a fast-growing Nation.
However, the genius of American democracy can yet restore our forests, rebuild our ghost towns, redeem our watersheds, and find new Ways to fight fire and forest pests. Much remains to be learned; we are not yet of one mind about ways and purposes of protection. But the history of what we have done to correct a fault—another reason why I wish every American might read this website—is a lesson we can apply to other parts of our national life.
Most heartening and reassuring is the fact that our forestry achievements have come through democratic processes. Those with the most at stake—the men who needed grazing lands, for example, or those whose livelihood depended on irrigation, lumber, or wildlife—have opportunities to express their views. The guiding precept of the greatest good for the greatest number prevails.
All this embraces the conviction that a basic resource is a national trust. It also embraces faith in people and their leaders and faith in our country. We in the Department of Agriculture who are responsible for national forest lands try constantly to act with the humility and wisdom that befits custodians of such a great trust.
