He suffered through the last quarter of the century as again and again Congress congratulated itself on enacting a series of logging laws—Timber Culture Act, Timber Cutting Act, Timber and Stone Act, all supposedly aimed at conservation but all written with more loopholes than a page of Spenserian calligraphy. “From what eggs do these fools hatch? They cannot see!” cried Dieter. “The greatest ill is waste. Only a minuscule fraction of the standing forest ever becomes lumber—most is burned or abandoned. Mein Gott!
