7- WEST FLORIDA PINE HILLS. 24 1 



The increasing use of substitutes for wood in the arts and trades, 

 especially in the construction of buildings, tends to diminish the 

 drain on our forests ; but even if the per capita consumption of wood 

 did not diminish, the exhaustion of the forests of West Florida 

 would be postponed for a long time, for the simple reason that there 

 are not enough people in those parts yet to keep the long-leaf pine 

 cut down as fast as it grows. For the greatest inroads on the forest, 

 in the eastern United States, have been made not by the lumberman, 

 but by the farmer; for in cultivated areas the forest is completely 

 destroyed, and the amount of cultivated land is steadily increasmg, 

 and the total forest area correspondingly diminishing. But until 

 the population in these parts is two or three times as dense as it 

 is now, no fear need be felt for the exhaustion of the timber supply 

 in the West Florida pine hills. 



The leading crops in this region in 1912, in order of value, were 

 as follows : Corn, upland cotton, velvet beans (including hay there- 

 of), sweet potatoes, sugar cane, peanuts, field peas (including hay), 

 (grass) hay, oats, peaches, pecans, oranges, watermelons, sea-island 

 2Ctton, Irish potatoes, pears, cabbage, figs, grapes, onions, tomatoes. 



