The Maintenance of our Woodlands. 139 



Turning from this aspect of our foreign commerce in forest pro- 

 ducts, we find within our borders, a steadily growing demand, 

 for uses that no other material can well supply; and although min- 

 eral coal has taken the place of wood to an extent that our wood- 

 lands alone could not long supply, were this coal no longer used, 

 and iron, and stone, and brick are now employed to a much 

 greater extent for structures once commonly made of wood, the 

 general, aggregate consumption of forest products, in their various 

 forms, was never greater than at present, and is steadily increasing 

 from year to year. 



With this brief statement of expenditures, let us next consider 

 the extent of our capital, and the amount of our income. These 

 data will, enable us to strike the balance of accounts, and to form 

 an estimate of the tendencies, and the probabilities before us. 



Our forest capital at first consisted of a country covered with a 

 heavy growth of native timber, which, with the exception of the 

 prairies of the northwest, extended over nearly the whole region 

 eastward from the Mississippi river, and at some points to a con- 

 siderable distance beyond. It was, in fact, greater than could be 

 retained in connection with agriculture, and an immense amount 

 was for many years withdrawn annually from existence, with no 

 returns but the price of wood ashes. This cutting simply to de- 

 stroy and to make vacant the land wanted for cultivation has 

 probably cancelled fully half of the native timber of the country, 

 and the land vacated in the cutting of wood for a useful purpose, 

 and in forest fires can scarcely be less, taking the whole country 

 into the estimate, than half of the remainder, that once existed 

 within the limits above mentioned. The loss from fire? alone has 

 in some years amounted to many millions of dollars. 



It is to be borne in mind, that although woodlands, when re- 

 moved, will, if left undisturbed, renew themselves in time, this 

 opportunity has generally not been given, and when allowed, it 

 has usually been only after the native fertility of the soil, derived 

 mainly from the decay of forest vegetation, had been so far ex- 

 hausted, that it could be tilled with profit no longer. The land 

 has then, sometimes, when abandoned, re-clothed itself with a 

 new growth of such kinds as happened to come in, and often with 



