13S Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



the time of his calamity depending upon the amount of his sur- 

 plus, and the rate of its exhaustion from accidents and use. Now, 

 what is true of an individual in this respect, is true of families, of 

 communities, and of nations ; and the principle is exactly the same, 

 whether the resources be in money, or in commodities that supply 

 our wants: for money is only a measure of values, and the amount 

 of it needed to secure a given object depends, not on the intrinsic 

 worth of the coin we pay, but on the abundance or scarcity, or in 

 other words the market value of what we buy. Applying this rule 

 to the woodlands of the country, let us seriously inquire as to 

 what is the amount of our capital ; what is our income, and what 

 are our expenses? If we find this capital much impaired, and the 

 rate of our expenditure far above our income, would it not be wise 

 in us to consider the important question : " What shall toe do to 

 prevent the impending danger? " 



We are to notice in the outset, that in any event that may hap- 

 pen, we can never look beyond our own limits for forest supplies, 

 because, with the exception of Canada, no foreign country has 

 ever furnished us with any lumber, excepting some of the finer 

 cabinet woods, or ever will. While importing nothing ourselves 

 from abroad, we have for a century or more been largely supply- 

 ing the wants of other people less provided than ourselves, and 

 are, at the present time, sending many millions of dollars worth 

 annually to countries that have no adequate supplies of their 

 own. It is to be noticed that this foreign demand is steadily increas- 

 ing from year to year, partly from the opening of new marts of 

 commerce, where none existed before, and partly from the increas- 

 ing demand from diminishing supplies, in countries that have 

 formerly provided for their own wants from their own resources, 

 and that have even exported a considerable surplus of their own 

 production, to countries less favored than themselves. We now 

 send lumber of certain kinds to Norwa} r and Sweden, and some 

 even to Russia, while from our Pacific coast, immense quan- 

 tities of our forest products are shipped annually to Australia, 

 Polynesia and South American ports, regions which but a few 

 years ago afforded no market for these products, and some of 

 which had no name on our maps, and no name in the list of 

 nations. 



