362 TKANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTUBAL 



• WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON SESSION. 



Meeting called to order by the President and the following pa- 

 per read: 



FOREST TREES. 



BY ANDREW S. CUTTER. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the 



Northern lUiiiois Horticultural Society r 



I love a tree, and any other man who loves trees I count ray 

 friend. Of all inanimate things, a tree comes nearer the com- 

 panionship of man than any other created object. The Almighty 

 himself seems to have ordained that no civilization shall reach an 

 exalted standard outside of timber areas. Not over one-fifth part 

 of the land surface of our globe is to-day covered with timber. And 

 I think that no intelligent man will question the statement that east 

 of the Missouri river and north of the fortieth degree north lati- 

 tude in the United States is there left one-tenth the forest area that 

 stood in such stately grandeur fifty years ago. In has been remarked 

 in a somewhat sarcastic spirit, that if the statisticians had things all 

 their own way there wouldn't be a tree now in the whole country 

 bigger than one's thumb, and that our writers upon forestry are per- 

 petually pi'ophecying the utter extermination of all our forests in 

 from five to seven years, while the facts seem to be that lumber is as 

 cheap as ever, and the supply yet seems to be inexhaustible. I wish 

 to state right here that I do not think, much less prophesy, that our 

 forests will become extinct in any such few brief years. It would 

 be a very narrow-minded statesman who viewed any great industrial 

 pursuit of his country from any such infinitesimal point of duration; 

 not in any half score of years or half score of centuries, either, 

 should this next greatest of all our national industries be allowed to 

 lapse or become extinct. Nay, more; that even then it may but 

 stand upon the bare threshold of its greatness and importance. 



The Cjuery is already seriously asked: Will there really be a 

 dearth of timber in our national domain anywhere in the near 

 future? And the answer coming from thoughtful men, comparing 

 our timber supply of two score years ago with what it is to-day, is, 

 most unquestionably, there will be. The comparative cheapness of 

 lumber at present, compared with the price in former years, has 

 been spoken of. Where this is really the case, it is almost entirely 

 due to superior facilities for manufacture and transportation. In 

 most parts of the country the statement does not hold good at all. 

 In many parts of New York and Pennsylvania, where thirty years 

 since in their haste to denude the hillside slopes of the beai>tiful white 



