THE LUMBER TRADE. 265 



United States was one million dollars ; in 1870, they were 

 valued at $8,200,000. The value of the material made into 

 woodenware in the United States increased from $436,000 in 

 1850, to $1,600,000 in 1870. The value of the material 

 converted into agricultural implements in the United States 

 in 1850 was only $8,000,000, while in 1870 it had reached 

 the enormous sum of $73,000,000, of which the forests must 

 have furnished twenty millions' worth. The enormous con- 

 sumption of wood in this country will, however, be sufficiently 

 shown by the following figures. 



In 1860, the value of logs sawed into lumber was $43,000,000 ; 

 in 1870, it was over $103,000,000, — an increase which neither 

 the growth of population or the general advance in all prices 

 can account for, and which can only be explained by the sup- 

 position that the uses to which forest products are applied 

 are being rapidly extended, and that the foreign demands on 

 American forests are increasing. But the statistics of the 

 lumber trade do not show the entire destruction which is 

 going on in our forests. Mr. Frederic Starr, Jr.,* in an 

 interesting paper on the American forests, estimated that 

 during the ten years between 1850 and 1860, 30,000,000 

 acres of forest-covered laud were cleared in the United States 

 for agricultural purposes, or ten thousand a day for each 

 working day during that time. Of the trees thus cut, prob- 

 ably the largest portion never found their way to market, 

 but were destroyed by fire for the sake of getting them oif 

 the land as rapidly as possible ; and although lumber is now 

 too valuable to justify any such mode of clearing, it is not 

 improbable that trees capable of producing millions of feet 

 are annually sacrificed in this manner. 



These facts and figures prove, whatever other objections 

 there may be to re-covering a portion of this State with forest 

 grow^th, that the farmers will not want a market for all the 

 lumber they can produce, and at prices far above those of 

 the present time. 



In order that any system of arboriculture may be success- 

 fully carried out, it is necessary to consider what trees, both 

 native and foreign, can be grown in this State to the greatest 



* Report of Department of Agi-iculture, 1865 : American Forests ; their Destruction 

 and Preservation. By tlie Rev. Frederic Starr, Jr., St. Louis.* 

 34 



