ANNUAL WINTER MEETING AT WARRKNSBURG. 249 



over, the best timber being culled, leaving the forest a forest of fire- 

 wood instead of marketable material. The timbers of greatest value 

 disappear almost unnoticed amid the mass of wood, which accident 

 has produced and preserved. 



Many admit that the most valuable part of the forests of the east 

 Atlantic and Midale States is already used up, but point to our un- 

 paralleled modern facilities of transportation, by which all needed 

 supplies can readily be landed at our doors. 



We are told that the southern States have still an unlimited 

 quantity of the most valuable timber, and will gladly supply the 

 country after the northern forests are exhausted. But how long will 

 the timber wealth of the Gulf States hold out when the formerly quiet 

 and almost unexplored forests of the south are penetrated from all 

 sides by the railways. This timber region can be stripped of its orig* 

 inal wealth as readily and speedily as has been done in the northern 

 States. 



Point to the Pacific coast, to the timber wealth of Oregon, Washing- 

 ton Territory, British Columbia and even to our Alaska acquisition, in 

 proof of the assertion that the continent is still limitless in timber sup- 

 plies, and you simply deceive the people by plausible arguments. Do 

 we not frequently hear and read this strain of reasoning proclaimed 

 by men and newspapers, who have every opportunity to know far 

 better. 



The planting of timber trees most valuable and indispensable to 

 the industries, and in consequence becoming scarcer from year to 

 year, is the only safeguard against future want. Plant and cultivate 

 for a few years after planting, on a scale to some extent, at least, pro- 

 portioned to the demand for the kinds for which the greatest strain is 

 brought on the native forests, and you practically solve the problem of 

 the forestry for future years. 



Let this rational proposition be accepted by the intelligence of 

 American agriculture, and be put into real practice where possible, 

 and scarcity of timber for house and railway construction, for fencing 

 and for the industries at large, will be neither spoken of nor feared. 

 The solution of the problem is an easy one indeed, based simply on 

 that axiom known to every farmer, however illiterate he may be, by 

 which he knows that seed time must precede harvest time, that he . 

 must work for what he wants to eat, to wear and to sell. 



Yet how strangely unpopular is the proposition that trees must be 

 planted and cultivated hereafter by the tiller of the soil with many 

 whose cherished traditions run fondly back to the old timbered States, " 

 in which the clearing of the land was formerly the foremost occupa- 

 tion of the farming population. 



