Abstract The depressed condition of the lumber industry has caused some lumbermen to feel that the sale of national forest timber adds to the difficulty of liquidating private timber. Yet, in the year of its maximum, the cut of national forest timber was only 4.3 per cent of the 1929 total lumber production of the country. In this address the Chief Forester makes pertinent comments on the problems of the lumber industry and sets forth the policy governing national forest timber sales. In managing the national forests, he says, the Forest Service acts as trustee of public property which it must manage with a long-time view point and with regard to the general welfare of the people, yet it must be business-like and takes into consideration the interests of the lumbermen. "The public interest requires also that the larger portion of the Nation's forest lands, which are in private ownership, shall be kept or made economically productive."
R. Y. Stuart (Sun,) studied this question.