European Facts for American Skeptics

Abstract This article was prepared in Petersburg, Czechoslovakia, in April, 1933, three months before N. R. A. became the law of the land, and long before Article X of the Code of Fair Competition for the Lumber and Timber Products Industry was even conceived. It is, therefore, of peculiarly timely interest to those foresters and timberland owners who took part in the three days' conference on Article X, October 24 to 26, and who are now engaged in the perfection of the plans for making its provisions operative. Of the two authors: Ward Shepard has had ninny years' experience in national forest administration in this country and in many matters having to do with the development of forest policy. He was an active and influential member of the committee which formulated the Forest Policy for the United States as adopted by the Society of American Foresters in 1931. During the spring and early summer of this year he played a most constructive part in building up public and private support of the principles embodied in Article X of the Lumber Code, and in the October Conference. During the past year he made an intensive study of forest policy in the German speaking countries of Europe under the auspices of the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation of Philadelphia. Dr. Franz Heske is a well known forester of Europe. He has had wide experience in organizing large private forest estates in India and in Central Europe to meet the exacting economic conditions of the post-war period, and is an authority on private forestry in Europe. As Professor of Forest Regulation in the Forest School at Tharandt, Saxony, it is interesting to note that he now occupies the same academic chair which was occupied 75 years ago by Pressler, the famous author of many of the forest finance formulae criticized by this article. Professor Heske is also Director of the Institute of Colonial and Foreign Forestry at Tharandt. The responsibility of the authors is as follows: Shepard vouches for all statements concerning America; Heske, for the accuracy of the facts and the soundness of the conclusions concerning European forestry.