IS LL'.M 



A e' 



M 



fi47 



tlius increasing llic life nf the \ir,L;iii 

 forests ten years. It will also enable 

 and enconra,s^c the land owner to c^row 

 trees for the market so that when the 

 virgin timber is gone there will be new 

 forests to take their place. The cost of 

 growing timber where the State fixes a 

 valuation of one dollar per acre for tax- 

 ation ])urposes on the land for ihii'tv 

 or forty years and does not lax the 

 growing timl)er is as follows: 



Assessed value v$l acre for oO 

 years and compound interest 



at G% $l.(i7 



Present value of land 3.00 



Cost of planting trees ])er acre__ o.OO 



Compound interest for 'i'.) vears 3T.!)4 

 Care of limber at 2 cents acre 



and comiii>und interest 1.07 



'r.)tal cost $4!).;^S 



There will be 5,000 feet per acre in 

 30 years" lime at a cost of about $1o.(hi 

 per M. feet, it's a good investment — 

 a good derm business ti^ engage in. 



IS LUMBER A CRIME? 



[\\ GiiORGE; H. Holt 



ONE man has made a national 

 newspaper reputation by declaim- 

 ing against the "Criminal Match." 

 .\nother has made a tour of the coun- 

 tr\- to exploit his catch phrase, "The 

 shingle roof is not a covering, but a 

 crime." 



The Fire Insurance propaganda with 

 its ninety-odd class-periodicals is pro- 

 nioting mass meetings in every State 

 and city denouncing all forms of wood 

 structure and utilit}' as guilty of the 

 "National Disgrace" of fire waste, and 

 denouncing all responsible officials as 

 criminals who do not use their official 

 positions and power to pn^hibit its use. 



The sensational press has heedlessK- 

 and ignorantly joined in the hue and 

 cry, and the unenlightened portion of 

 the "dear people" which takes its tone 

 from head lines is hurling stones and 

 clubs and epithets at the "Lumber 

 Trust" — that mythological, disembodied 

 Uanshee — in blissful ignorance of the 

 facts and of its own best interests. 



(\\r natm"al enemies, the ])urveyors 

 and manufacturers of competing ma- 

 terial, and novel, untried substitutes, 

 are spending mints of easy money in 

 advertising and promoting the sale and 

 use of their j)ct fads, and are not con- 

 science-smitten when they decorate 

 their ]>ronouncements with all the lurid 

 colors which they can borrow from 

 their evil-disposed or ignorant collab- 

 orators. 



Iluilding ordinances and restrictions 

 are enacted and enforced upon the 

 false assumption that if matches and 

 mice and shingles and lu nber and ever\- 

 form and use of wood were prohibited, 

 property and life would be forever safe 

 from the Fire Hazard, and everybody 

 would be happier. 



]n this hour of unrest, when anv 

 demagogue can get a hearing by pro- 

 claiming that "Everything that is. is 

 wrong." the likelihood is that we are 

 on the road to destruction of nmcli that 

 is good, along with so re things that are 

 bad. A wrong diagnosis leads to a fatal 

 disaster, when a right diagnosis might 

 prolong life and happiness. 



What about the criminal match ? 

 The tests made by the Underwriters 

 themselves ilisprove that charge. They 

 show that "safe" matches share the re- 

 sponsibilitv equally with "unsafe" 

 matches. It is the careless use of 

 matches, not the matches themselves 

 that should bear the blame. 



The actual tests of "mice and 

 matches" and "rats and matches" re- 

 duce to ridicule the tabulations of 

 losses from those causes, although they 

 have become a standing scare-he;id in 

 all annual reports of Ih'e loss. 



What about the "Criminal Shingle"? 



1'here are no statistics worthy of the 

 slightest res]5ect which tend to justify 

 that false alarm. Think of the eleven 

 million and odd buildings in this conn- 



