86 State Horliciiltiiral Society, 



MISSOURI FORESTS. 



(N. F. Murray, Oregon, Mo.) 



Originally Missouri was quite well supplied with forests of valu- 

 able timber such as oak, walnut, sycamore, cotton wood, poplar, cypress, 

 hickory, pecan, beech, locust, pine, cedar, etc. The larger forests are 

 found in the southern part of the State, and include the pine, cedar, 

 cypress and beech. In the northern part of the State some splendid 

 forests were found along the Missouri river and her tributaries, mainly 

 of oak, hickory, elm, hard maple and cotton wood. But these once beau- 

 tiful forests are fast fading away to supply our own people, and those of 

 less favored states who draw upon Missouri for a vast amount of lum- 

 ber, cross-ties, piling, and posts. We have in the United States (approx- 

 imately) thirty thousand saw mills, that cut up one thousand acres of our 

 forests every hour to feed the remorseless jaws of commerce. The orig- 

 inal growth of our most valuable forests is nearly exhausted. The for- 

 ests of north Missouri have been robbed of their cream, and the pine 

 of south Missouri will soon be a thing of the past; and her fine oak is 

 going rapidly for cross-ties, piling, posts, and agricultural implements. 

 What is true of Missouri forests, is also true of the forests of other 

 states, they are fast melting away, and there is no hope of any relaxation 

 on them, but on the contrary, there will ever be a growing demand for 

 all kinds of lumber, for building purposes, for cross-ties, for pole lines, 

 fuel, wood pulp, cellulose, etc. It may be of interest to note that the 

 word "book" comes from the old germanic word for beech, because the 

 Anglo-Saxons and Germans wrote on beechen boards before paper was 

 used. Also that the word "library" comes from the Latin "liber," the 

 bark of a tree. The first paper makers were hornets which scrape ofiF 

 the weather-worn wood of stumps, rails and boards, and convert it into 

 a kind of paper, out of which they construct their nests. The amount 

 of* wood which is consumed in the manufacture of our paper is immense. 

 A prominent New York newspaper uses one hundred and fifty tons of 

 paper daily. To produce this amount of paper, two hundred and twenty- 

 five cords of spruce wood are consumed. There are many other firms 

 that use as much, and a greater number that use a less amount, and our 

 supply of spruce wood is so nearly exhausted, that the Government is 

 now experimenting to find out, if possible, other varieties that will do 

 for paper. Our common postal card is made from the pulp of the tulip 

 (our poplar). Common newspaper material is simply wood from which 



