466 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



sentiment was carried a little too far, and there are states which 

 have laws preventing the cutting of timber on state lands. We are 

 now, while not doing away with the sentiment, learning that if for- 

 estry cannot be considered as a business-like proposition it has no 

 place in this country, and the forester of to-day may be described as 

 a man with an axe on his shoulder who knows how and when to 

 use it. 



WHY FORESTRY IS NEEDED IN THIS COUNTRY. 



There is no one here who, if he has considered the matter of 

 forestry at all, has not asked himself: why do we need forestry in 

 this country? If each one of you could set the million upon million 

 of acres of bare hillsides and ridges in this State and other states 

 of the east and west which were formerly covered with splendid 

 forests, you would need few arguments to convince you of the wis- 

 dom of practical forestry. The fact that we are tremendous con- 

 sumers of all kinds of forest products should make us consider the 

 future supply of these products and what future generations are to 

 do when the virgin supply is gone. We use annually in this coun- 

 try 500 board feet of timber for every man, woman and child; in 

 Europe less than 60 board feet are used. One or two examples of 

 the consumption of timber may be of interest in emphasizing our 

 need for forestry. In the something over 300,000 miles of railroad 

 in this country there are used about 2,800 ties to the mile. This 

 means that 800,000,000 ties are constantly in use, to be replaced 

 every 5 to 10 years. The amount of wood used in ties each year is 

 t quivalent to 600,000 acres of forest, which would be about one- 

 fourth of Pennsylvania, and we would be a rich state if one-fourth 

 of Pennsylvania was forested heavily enough to produce all of the 

 ties used in this country even for a period of five years. Another 

 example which may be of interest is the way in which we are using 

 fence posts in Pennsylvania. According to the last Census, Penn- 

 sylvania has 8,204,000 acres actually in agricultural crops, but there 

 are about 1S,()()0,000 acres out o^ the total area of the State, which is 

 28,790.400 acres, as improved or^unimproved land within farms. The 

 18,000,000 acres In farms is equal to 28,125 square miles. Assum- 

 ing that it r(M|uires 2,000 posts to fence a square mile, it requires 

 56,250,000 posts to fence our farms. At 10 cents each, which is a 

 very low price, it costs this State |5, 625,000 every eight to twelve 

 years for fence posts alone. An average acre of timber of size 

 suitable for posts will produce about 3,500 3 to 5 inch round posts. 

 It would thus lake 10,071 ficres eiery eight to twelve jears to pro- 

 duce the posts which we use in this State alone. The last census 

 estimates that one billion fence posts are set in this country each 

 year. If these x>osts were set 16 feet apart, they would make a fence 

 121 times about the greatest circumference of the earth. Such sta- 

 tistics could be given almost without end, showing that we are ex- 

 ceedingly prodigal in the use of our forests. 



The tremendous consumption of forest products in this country 

 has been necessary, perhaps, in our wonderful development. The 

 trouble is that we are using up our timber resources three time as 

 fast as they are being produced. After careful investigation the 

 U. S. Forest Service states that we are on the verge of a timber 

 famine, and that within forty years we will have used up all of our 

 virgin forests. Isn't it time that our governors get together and 



