Bernhard Fernow

"A vague idea that some connection existed between the forest-cover and the climatic conditions of a country has been prevalent from olden times. "The tree is the mother of the fountain," or "the father of the rain," are significant expressions of the sages of old. ... And now, in the light of recent scientific experiments and investigations, added to the historical evidence of earlier times, we are forced to consider the forests of a country in a fourfold aspect: 1. As furnishers of raw material. 2. As regulators of climatic conditions. 3. As regulators of hydrologic conditions, influencing the water-flow in springs, brooks, and rivers. 4. As regulators of soil-conditions."

"If we can, by reasonably husbanding present supplies, and by exercise of management, prolong for the human race the use of this most convenient material, should we not rather curb our spendthrift tendencies than rely upon the ingenuity of our children in supplying substitutes?"

"The severest test of democratic institutions is experienced when the attempt is made to establish a policy which shall guard the interests of the future at the expense of the demands and needs of the present. Democracy produces attitudes and characteristics of the people which are inimical to stable economic arrangements looking to the future, such as are implied in a forest policy. The vast country with an unevenly distributed and heterogeneous population presents the greatest variety of natural, as well as of economic conditions; the immediate interests of one section naturally do not coincide with those of other sections; particularistic and individualistic tendencies of the true democrat are antagonistic to anything which smacks of "paternalism," the attitude under which alone a persistent, farsighted policy can thrive. Frequent change of administration, or at least the threat of such change, impedes consistent execution of plans; fickle public opinion may subvert at any time well laid plans which take time in maturing; the true democratic doctrine of restricting State activity to police functions, and the doctrine of non-interference with private rights, as well as the idea of State rights in opposition to federal power and authority—all these characteristics of a democratic government are impediments to a concerted action and stable policy."