THE ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF FORESTRY. 31* 



In spite of steady improvement in tools, in machinery and in 

 facilities for transportation, the increase in the value of logs and lum- 

 ber becomes more and more rapid. The American lumberman has 

 always been remarkable for enterprise and effectiveness, while American 

 saw-mills compare favorably with those in any other country. These 

 conditions, which would naturally tend to a sustained decrease in the 

 cost of lumber products, are more than offset by the scarcity of avail- 

 able timber. 



To sum up, the lumber industry of this country is approaching the 

 end of its resources with alarming rapidity. It has, by over-production, 

 fostered an abnormal demand, and by methods aimed at present profit 

 alone, hampered the production of a second crop upon the lumbered 

 area. Notwithstanding the growing economy in the harvesting, manu- 

 facture and distribution of forest products, their value is each year 

 higher, while there is enormous increase in the importation of softwoods 

 from Canada and of hardwoods from the tropics. Existing data as to 

 the quantity of standing timber in the United States is insufficient for 

 a close estimate of how long it will last at the current rate of consump- 

 tion. It is inevitable, however, that the present generation will see 

 the exhaustion of our first growth timber. Nor is the supply now 

 standing so secure that it may be counted upon with certainty. Forest 

 fires destroy annually timber aggregating over $50,000,000 in value, 

 and measures to prevent them so far have not proved generally effective. 

 It will be understood, moreover, that the crippling of the lumber trade 

 and of all industries dependent upon it does not await the actual ex- 

 haustion of our forests. The geographical distribution of the great 

 timber regions in this country, with relation to the chief sources of 

 demand, is such that the local and not the total available supply is 

 the urgent question. The fact that the heavy forests of the Pacific 

 slope are sufficient to yield for many years an amount equal to the 

 present annual consumption will not prevent a timber famine in the 

 East, when to the price of the bulk of the wood it consumes is added 

 the cost of transportation across the continent. Statistics giving com- 

 forting assurance of an abundant yield still at hand do not consider 

 the effect upon wood industries of the substitution of timber of a few 

 kinds only to fill a widely varying demand. The presence of hard- 

 woods in the southern Appalachians and pine 'in the southern pine 

 belt, in quantity sufficient to replace for some time the waning supply 

 of spruce in the north woods, offers no substitute for the latter species 

 in the manufacture of paper pulp. The redwood, red fir and hemlock 

 of the Pacific coast will in some respects take the place of the longleaf 

 pine, the exhaustion of which, at the present rate of consumption, will 

 soon be accomplished. They can not, however, serve as the source of 



