30 



TIMBER FOR FUEL. 



After what has been said above, we hardly need to comment on the 

 scarcity of timber in the State, for the general purposes of fuel. Taking 

 all the agricultural counties in the State together, including the cities 

 and towns within them, and considering the probable increase of popu- 

 lation, it is very doubtful whether, under present management, they will 

 be able to supply their own demands for fuel for ten years to come. 

 While it will pay, in case of necessity, to freight lumber and heavy tim- 

 ber great distances by land, and to ship it by water half way round the 

 globe, it becomes very burdensome and oppressive to all classes of the 

 community to be compelled to convey wood, for domestic and manufac- 

 turing purposes, comparatively but small distances. To illustrate this 

 proposition, we need only to mention the fact, that while there is within 

 an area of twenty miles from either of the cities of Marysville, Stockton 

 or Sacramento, a plenty of wood for a 3*ear or two's supply, and it costs 

 but two dollars a cord to have it cut, yet the present price of wood in 

 each of these cities is about ten dollars a cord. Even at this high price, 

 the owner of wood land thirty miles from Sacramento, on the line of the 

 Central Pacific Railroad, can make that wood net him only one dollar 

 and a half a cord, delivered in the city. These facts show how extremely 

 expensive and oppressive it would be to undertake to supply the cities 

 of the State with wood from the distant mountains. And yet what other 

 resource will be left, a very few years hence ? California should, at no 

 distant da}\ become one of the greatest manufacturing States of the 

 Union, but where will we obtain the fuel with which to generate the 

 steam that propels the machinery ? Again, a new element of calculation 

 on this subject has just been introduced among us, and will grow rapidly 

 in the future. We refer to the consumption of fuel by the railroads. 

 There is now in the State, completed and in operation, about seven hun- 

 dred miles of road. In a year from now, it is safe to say, there will be 

 over a thousand. Call it one thousand even. It requires one and three- 

 fourths cords of wood, with an ordinary train, to drive an engine twenty- 

 five miles. Now assuming that an average of ten trains a day will then 

 be running over this one thousand miles of road, for thi'ee hundred and 

 twenty days in the year, and we have a distance of three million two 

 hundred thousand miles travelled in the year. As each twenty-five miles 

 of distance travelled will consume one and three-fourths cords of wood, 

 the consumption of one thousand miles of road will be two hundred and 

 twenty-four thousand cords per year. In twent}' years we will probably 

 have four thousand miles of road completed, averaging twenty instead 

 of ten trains per day, and consuming one million seven hundred and 

 ninety-two thousand cords of wood per annum. This, added to the 

 increased consumption for all the other purposes of lite, will make rapid 

 inroads into the few sparsely wooded portions of our State, if there 

 should indeed be any trees left standing at that time. 



EFFECTS OF SCARCITY OF LUMBER AND WOOD. 



The first effect of a scarcity of lumber and wood will be to enhance 

 the cost. We have already noticed the high price of wood delivered in 

 our cities. Lumber has not enhanced very much in value for the last 

 ten years, but indirectly. The cost of cutting, manufacturing and get- 

 ting to market has been decreasing, while the cost to the consumer has 

 remained the same. It is the opinion of dealers that it will soon appre- 



