CHAPTER XLVIII 



THE FOREST IN RELATION TO MAN 



Questions. 1. What is the use of having forests if the trees are not 

 cut ? 2. Why cannot forests be left to the management of their owners 

 just as farms and other properties are ? 3. Of what use are trees in the 

 city? 4. Of what concern are forests to people who live in cities ? 5. Of 

 what concern are forests to people who live along the seashore ? 6. How 

 can the condition of the forests influence the cost of living ? 7. Why 

 should public money be spent on recreation forests that are visited by 

 only about i per cent of the people ? 8. Could a forest be run like a 

 farm, to yield a product year after year ? 



392. Forest products. IMan depends in many ways upon 

 masses of trees growing together as forests. It is from the trees 

 that we get one of the most useful of materials — wood. This is 

 utilized in hundreds of ways, from the making of toothpicks and 

 tool handles to the timbering of mines or the making of stock 

 for newspapers. All human habitations have some wood in their 

 composition, and probably most people live in houses built 

 almost entirely of wood. Every home has furniture made at 

 least in part of wood ; and in every industry, and in every office, 

 furniture and appliances made of wood are used. 



In the railroad business millions of dollars are spent every year for 

 the ties upon which the rails are laid. Similar amounts are spent upon 

 telegraph poles and fence posts, although these are coming to be replaced 

 by reenforced concrete and other materials. In shipping goods of all 

 kinds from place to place millions of feet of lumber are used, in the 

 form of packing cases and boxes and trunks. Trees furnish us with char- 

 coal turpentine, pitch, wood alcohol, and various gums and resins. From 

 tropical trees we obtain rubber and quinin. To some extent the dye log- 

 wood is holding its own against the anilin blacks, and during the World 

 War dyewoods took on a renewed importance because of the changes in 

 the chemical industries. Bark from certain trees, especially the hemlock, 

 yields tannin used in the tanning of leather. 



549 



