268 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATIOxX 



^lay 



States, 400,000 square miles in ex- 

 tent. Surely such a supply seems in- 

 exhaustible, and if the rate of con- 

 sumption of 1905 were continued in- 

 definitely without change, our coal 

 would last approximately 4,000 years, 

 but at the constantly increasing rate of 

 consumption which has marked the 

 past century, our coal will be practic- 

 ally exhausted within one hundred 

 years. 



The policy of the Government 

 which, when the years have told their 

 story, will be perhaps the most far- 

 reaching of aU, is that embodied in the 

 National Forest Service ; for the prop- 

 er use of nearly all our other resources 

 undeniably depends upon the forests. 



The Forest Service estimates of the 

 timber now standing in the United 

 States, compared with the present 

 rate of consumption, show a probable 

 exhaustion of our timber supplies in a 

 little over thirty-three years. These 

 facts should convince the most 

 skeptical of the immediate and vital 

 necessity of using every means within 

 our power to prolong the life of our 

 forests. 



That a realization of the truth is be- 

 ing brought home to us, is shown by 

 the newspapers of the country. Says 

 the Chicago Inter-Ocean: "One of 

 the noteworthy signs of the times is 

 that the American people are at last 

 becoming awake to the importance of 

 forest preservation, and reforestation, 

 and the work of the Government For- 

 est Service." 



The question which most concerns 

 the people of the United States to-day 

 is the conservation of the hardwood 

 forests in the Southern Appalachian 

 and White Mountain regions. Sta- 

 tistics prove that there are lean years 

 ahead, and that many industries will 

 be seriously crippled by the shortage 

 •of hardwood timber, and that some 

 will have to suspend entirely. 



If the trees go. the soil on which 

 they grow goes too. Senator Depew is 

 one of those who have pointed out this 

 fact. Before the United States Senate 

 in 1902, Mr. Depew said in the rhyth- 



mic flow of eloquence to which his col- 

 leagues delight to listen : 



''The results of an attack upon the 

 Appalachian forests, created by Na- 

 ture for the protection and enrichment 

 of the people, is more disastrous than 

 the sweep of an invading army of sav- 

 ages over a thickly populated and fer- 

 tile country. They kill, they carry off 

 captives, they burn, and they destroy; 

 but after the war is over the survivors 

 return to their homes, and in a few 

 years every vestige of the ruin has dis- 

 appeared. In its place there are again 

 cities, villages and happy people. But 

 the lumber man selects a tract of hard- 

 wood forest upon the Appalachian 

 Mountains. The trees, young and old, 

 big and little, surrender to the ax and 

 the saw. Then the soil is sold to the 

 farmer, who finds abundant harvest in 

 its primeval richness. For about three 

 years, he gathers a remunerative and 

 satisfactory harvest, but he sees, as the 

 enormous rainfall descends, his farm 

 gradually disappear. At the end of 

 three years, he can no longer plant 

 crops, but for two year's more, if 

 lucky, he may be able to graze his 

 stock. At the end of five years, the 

 rain and flood have washed clean the 

 mountain sides, have left nothing but 

 the bare rocks, have reduced his farm 

 to a desert, and created a ruin which 

 can never be repaired. 



"But this is not all. That farm has 

 gone down with the torrents, which 

 have been formed by the cutting ofif of 

 the protecting woods, into the streams 

 below. It has caused them to spread 

 over the farms of the valleys and 

 plateaus. It has turned these peace- 

 ful waters into roaring floods, which 

 have plowed deep and destructive gul- 

 leys through fertile fields and across 

 grassy plains. One freshet in the Ca- 

 tawba River, last spring, occasioned 

 wholly by the deforesting of the moun- 

 tains, swept away a million and a half 

 dollars' worth of farms, buildings, and 

 stock. 



"Negligence of this kind on the part 

 of Congress becomes almost a crime. 

 Those wonderful woods should have 



