Often the Editor of a magazine like ours must be tempted to cry " what is the use " and put down his pen in despair; yet time tells often that his labors have not been without result.

Years since we started to show that the so-called forest science, initiated by Marsh in his "Man and Nature," was a complete farrago of nonsense. It is pretty well understood now that trees are a result and not a cause of climate. The hobgoblin being out of the way, there was nothing left for city foresters to worry about but the short supply of timber in the near future. Thus it became a practical question only, and trees will be planted wherever it will pay to grow them.

Necessarily, as we then had to say, there was nothing left but sentiment to care for the old forests. We cannot by all the legislation on the lawyers' shelves prevent forest fires in old forests, and the sooner these forests are gone and new ones planted the better for all of us.

These views also are prevailing, and though we personally get little credit, it is some satisfaction to feel that the work has by no means been lost. The very fact that the strange idea has become so much a part of the general thought of the world, till its parentage has been lost, is the more encouraging. Forestry says : "The writer who says that our hope of a timber supply does not lie in the direction of preserving the old forests, but in producing the new, comes pretty near hitting the nail on the head. Little good can come from allowing timber to stand until it has seen its best days and begins to decay and lose strength. It is not the 'primeval' but the young forest that needs protection." This is not only our idea but the exact language.