victim to "the many valuable qualities of Miss Randolph.” The quaint and formal letter in which he asks Jefferson "the sanction of your approval" is still preserved, the elegant blue paper and exquisitely written lines betraying the importance of his request:

My dear Sir,

I have delayed to express the gratification which my visit to Monticello, during the last spring gave me, until called upon to ask you for further kindness. During the fortnight which I passed so agreeably in your family, the many valuable qualities of Miss Randolph made an impression upon me which, at parting, I did not attempt to conceal. I confessed to Mrs. Randolph the interest her daughter had inspired. But want of sufficient knowledge of my character was an objection to forming an engagement which involved the happiness of life; and my own judgement acquiesced in a delay which, though painful to my feelings, permitted something more to be known of myself and the family than could be learned from the letters I had presented: permission to write occasionally was however granted me, and the correspondence which followed has perhaps assisted in showing us something of each other's character; it has certainly confirmed the high opinion I had formed of Miss Randolph's heart and understanding. Several months have elapsed: my friends have given their full consent; and I now ask of you Sir, permission to return to Monticello, that my own character may become better known, by longer personal intercourse.

The visit I am about to make does not involve Miss Randolph in any positive or implied engagement:-should she see fit to decline all connection but that of friendship, I should think less well of myself, but not of her: if she consent, after further acquaintance, to gratify my dearest wish, may I not hope, Sir, for the sanction of your approval?

I do not presume that you now hear, for the first time, of my attachment to a member of your family; but respect and gratitude alike forbid me to ask again the protection of your roof without confessing the true motive of my visit. Apart from the interest which I feel in you, Sir, as the cherished relation of one who, under every circumstance, will be dear to me, may I not be permitted to assure you of my individual, unfeigned regard?

Boston:

October 13, 1824.

Thomas Jefferson, Esq.

J. COOLIDGE Jr.

Jefferson's draught of his reply, with its many interlineations and scorings, mutely testifies to his affection for his granddaughter and his anxiety for her happiness:

Monticello, Oct. 24, '24.

Dear Sir,

I should not have delayed a single day the answer to your interesting and acceptable letter of the 13th inst. but that it found me suffering severely from an imposthume under the jaw. I avail myself of the first moment of my ability to take up a pen to assure you that nothing could be more welcome to me than the visit proposed, or its object. During the stay you were so kind as to make with us, my opportunities were abundant of seeing and estimating the merit of your character insomuch as to need no further enquiry from others. Nor did the family leave me uninformed of the attachment which seemed to be forming towards my granddaughter Ellen. I learnt it with pleasure, because from what I believed of your, and knew of her, extraordinary moral qualifications, I was satisfied no two minds could be formed better compounded to make each other happy. I hold the same sentiment now that I receive the information from yourself, and assure you that no union could give me greater satisfaction, if your wishes prove mutual, and your friends consenting.

Your visit to Monticello and at the time of your own convenience will be truly welcome, and your stay whatever may suit yourself under any views of friendship or connection. My gratification will be measured by the time of its continuance.

TH. JEFFERSON.

Ellen's marriage on the 25th of May, 1825, and her removal to Boston, did not deprive Jefferson of her solicitude and love during the last year of his life. Frequent gifts and a constant interchange of letters bear witness to Ellen's thoughtful devotion. None of these better expresses the spiritual union of the venerable statesman and his playmate than the first letter from her new home. "One of my first cares," she writes, "is to thank you for all the kindness I have received from you, & for all the affection you have shewn me, from my infancy & childhood, throughout the course of my maturer years: the only return I can make is by gratitude the deepest and most enduring and love the most devoted; and although removed by fortune to a distance from you, yet my heart is always with you." MARIE KIMBALL.

THE ECONOMIC SIGNIFICANCE OF

FORESTRY

BY GIFFORD PINCHOT

WHILE I was a student of forestry in the French Forest School at Nancy, there reached me a magazine from home in which one of the leaders of the scientific thought of his day, a public servant of most distinguished achievement, described a forest fire. He told how he had laid his camp fire against the bole of a giant tree, and how the flames, rising along its trunk, jumped from it to other trees, until a great forest conflagration went roaring off through miles of mountain timberland in the heart of the Rockies. What struck him was the beauty of the fire, and nowhere in the whole account was there the slightest indication of compunction or regret for the huge destruction he had caused.

His attitude was typical of his time. Today few men of thought, and none of light and leading, think lightly of forest fires. Yet the forest problem of the United States is far more pressing now than when a leader in science rejoiced over the incidental beauty of forest destruction, and the solution is far more distant, and more difficult to reach, than it was then.

In the matter of our supplies of forest products, we Americans are faced by a set of facts and a problem which, in gravity and far-reaching control over our immediate and remoter future, take their place fairly alongside the issues which center about the League of Nations. The essential fact is that we are not only destroying our forest supplies far more rapidly than they are being reproduced, but also-what is much more to the point-that we are using up the productive capacity of our forest lands. Not only is there less wood year by year and day by day in the United States, but there is less land growing wood. We are living beyond our income and destroying our invested capital at the same time.

We are nearly bankrupt, and do not know it. Because there has always been wood enough to go round, we have placidly assumed that there always would be. Unfortunately, the facts

are against us.

It is true that we have made progress. Forestry in America has come to mean something more than the planting of trees in yards, streets, and schoolgrounds. It is true that we are leaving behind that phase of public opinion which believed that we could somehow compensate for the destruction of the forests on thousands or millions of acres by the planting of trees on tens or hundreds. We hear less of the influence of the forest on climate and health, and more of the need for wood. Even the discussion of the effect of the forest in producing rain, and controlling the flow of springs and streams, has been largely replaced by more immediate and practical considerations. Forestry has become a problem to be taken seriously, but as yet its real economic significance is little appreciated and less understood.

We are coming to realize that wood is the most universal of all materials, that without wood all production would be impossible, transportation a dream, and business dead.

Iron, coal, oil, and wood are the four basic materials upon which modern civilization rests, and of these the most widely employed and undoubtedly the most indispensable is wood. So far as wood is concerned, the human race is still very much in the same position it has occupied since before the dawn of recorded history. No need of body or mind can be met, no instant of our lives can be passed in comfort or well being, without something that only the forest can supply. Nothing we eat or use or wear can be produced, transported, or consumed without the help of the forest. We never could and cannot now get on without it.

When iron is put to use, whatever percentage may be consumed and disappear, there is still an important salvage and re-use. Coal and oil, once utilized, are gone for good, but provision has been made in the recent Coal and Oil Leasing Bill, passed at the last session of Congress, for preventing waste and prolonging the life of our supplies, at least such of them as are still in the public lands. Timber, the one renewable resource of the four, is being destroyed (and not renewed) more rapidly than ever.

This statement is true, notwithstanding the fact that National Forests to the extent of 150 million acres, and State forests to the extent of less than five million, "have been set aside and their power to produce has been saved for good. Public forests contain but one-fifth of our timber, and can never be expected to yield much more than one-fifth of our necessary supplies.

Before proceeding to touch upon the actual situation of our timber and timbered lands, it may be well to say a word about wood substitutes. In the first place, the use of a substitute almost invariably means the employment of a less satisfactory material at a higher price. In the second place, the increase of our population and industry more than keeps pace with the development of substitutes, so that, for example, more wood is used in building construction than when all houses were built of wood, more for shipbuilding than when there were no iron ships. The use of substitutes does not decrease the consumption of wood in any great line of industry.

The essential facts in our forest situation are these: Threefifths of the timber we once had in the United States is gone. Over two-thirds of our original forest area has been culled, cutover, or burned. Of our virgin forests, one-sixth remains. Out of about 825 million acres of original forest, we have left today less than 140 million acres of virgin timber, about 110 million acres of cull and second growth timber big enough to saw, and about 130 million acres partly stocked with smaller growth. More than eighty million acres have been devastated, and, so far as production is concerned, are practically desert.

Of the merchantable timber yearly cut or destroyed, about three-quarters is taken from the virgin forests which still remain -about one-quarter from second growth. The cut of every class of timber exceeds the growth. Even the young trees too small for the saw are being cut three and one-half times faster than they are being reproduced. Taken together, we are cutting wood of all kinds from our forests more than four times faster than it is being replaced by growth.

The foregoing are official figures presented in reply to a resolution of the Senate by the United States Forest Service on June 1, 1920.