256 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



May 



in going, in calling attention to the 

 danger that confronts the country. We 

 have been handed the following letter 

 from William J. W^allace, a timber ex- 

 pert, of Duluth, Minnesota, which we 

 commend to the careful attention of 

 our readers : 



"Having spent the past twenty years 

 in e'stimating timber in different parts 

 of the United States, I have had a fair 

 opportunity to study the general tim- 

 ber situation and will say that the prob- 

 lem of forest preservation and refor- 

 estation is one that should interest ev- 

 ery citizen of this country. 



"It is safe to say that timber values 

 have doubled in the United States in 

 the past five years, and with the in- 

 creased demand and the decreased sup- 

 ply, it must be plain to every thinking 

 man that if reforestation does not 

 take place it will only be a few years 

 until the price of lumber will be be- 

 yond the reach of the common people. 

 "When Mr. Pinchot makes the state- 

 ment that the forests of the United 

 States will only last twenty-five years, 

 I consider he has placed the time limit 

 too far away for the remaining timber 

 supply east of the Rocky iNIountains. 



"Take the State of Minnesota, for 

 instance. Eighteen years ago, when I 

 made my first trip to this locality, 

 Minnesota, Northern Michigan and 

 Wisconsin were, generally speaking, 

 virgin forests. To-day the pine timber 

 of Michigan and Wisconsin is prac- 

 tically a thing of the past, and the re- 

 maining timber, the hardwoods and 

 hemlocks in those States, that the early 

 lumbermen considered worthless, has 

 become valuable because of the scarc- 

 ity of timber and the greatly increased 

 demand. The railroads of these States 

 to-day are using hemlock and birch ties, 

 which a few years ago were considered 

 worthless. When the lumbermen get 

 through in Minnesota, there will be 

 even no worthless timber to fall back 

 on, for the reason that nearly all of 

 the logging done in this state at the 

 present time is done by logging rail- 

 roads, and all the timber that will mea- 

 sure 5 inches at the top end is cut into 

 sawlogs, regardless of kind and qual- 



ity. One by one the lumber companies 

 are exhausting their present supply of 

 timber, and it is safe to say that in less 

 than fifteen years the great lumber in- 

 dustry of this section of the country 

 will be past history. 



"As we have no reliable figures, at 

 this time, as to the amount of the 

 remaining timber stumpage left in the 

 United States, only those who have 

 studied the situation are in any posi- 

 tion to judge how long our forests 

 will last. There is going to be a great 

 increase in the consumption of timber 

 in this country, and I think it will be 

 safe to say that as much timber will 

 be consumed in the next fifteen years 

 as was consumed in the past twenty- 

 five ; so it is my opinion that if refor- 

 estation is not made a part of the busi- 

 ness of the Government, State, cor- 

 poration and private interests in the 

 next few years, we will have a tim- 

 ber famine which will cause financial 

 embarassment to a great many of our 

 industries. 



"We know what has taken place in 

 the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and 

 Michigan in the past twenty-five years, 

 and with the increased demand, how 

 long will the remaining forests east 

 of the Rocky Mountains last? Billions 

 of feet of timber have been cut in the 

 last ten years in the southern states, 

 and there are millions of acres of land 

 there with no timber on it. The orig- 

 inal stand of timber per acre of the 

 Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota 

 forests would, as a whole, average at 

 least three times that of the southern 

 forests, and I certainly believe that 

 twenty years hence ninety per cent of 

 the remaining timber of the United 

 States will be west of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, and ninety per cent of the de- 

 mand for the same will be east of the 

 Rocky Mountains, so that the average 

 freight rate added to the value of the 

 western stumpage twenty years hence 

 would give one some idea of the value 

 of timber stumpage in any of the states 

 east of the Mississippi River, if refor- 

 estation does not take place. 



"There may be large forests of tim- 

 ber left in Canada, but we cannot fig- 



