Timber Culture. 157 



I am not greatly disturbed by all this, nor do I see in the near 

 future any reason to apprehend suffering for the want of fuel, or 

 any great inconvenience from scarcity of building material. 

 While considering this wholesale consumption in our large cen- 

 ters and most accessible sources of supply, we must remember 

 that in most of the states there are vast tracts of timber yet un- 

 touched because more or less remote from present lines of trans- 

 portation, yet ail accessible when increasing demand shall require 

 it. Also, that on our prairies spontaneous timber growth springs 

 up as soon as the annual fires are suppressed, needing but slight 

 protection and moderate time to produce a large timber crop. 

 Thomas Meehan, in a recent report as Botanist to the Pennsylva- 

 nia State Board of Agriculture, says : "After two months spent 

 in examining the forests of Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Caro- 

 lina and Tennessee, the result of my investigation is, the knowl- 

 edge that there is very much more timber in the country than 

 people generally believe; also that when there shall be a real 

 scarcity of lumber, so as to affect the market price seriously, it 

 will pay to plant timber, and forests so planted will come into use 

 when properly cared for in much less time than people have been 

 led to believe. In going through the Shenandoah Valley, of 

 Virginia, we were furnished proof entirely satisfactory that when 

 the white man settled in that valley it was wholly clear of timber, 

 and that most of the immense quantity growing there now has 

 grown in the past one or two hundred years. In like manner the 

 probability is that in all the large valleys of Pennsylvania there 

 was no wood at the early settlement of the state. We have cut 

 away a great deal, but then, we have gained some and the fact is 

 worth remembering." 



Fifty years ago New England was exercised with the same fear 

 of a timber scarcity that troubles us now. To-day hundreds of 

 her hill farms are gradually passing back from grazing and tillage 

 to wito and neglected woodlands, and scarcity of timber is hardly 

 thought of. We very much enjoy our present abundance and 

 our reckless extravagance, yet we can, when necessity compels it, 

 become models of economy and frugality. In proof of this, go 

 to-day to western Minnesota and you will find the people warming 



