ARBORICULTURE 



149 



American Wastefulness, 



The French people — -that is, the peas- 

 ants and middle class — are commonly re- 

 garded as the thriftiest people in the 

 world. Perhaps they do not possess this 

 trait in greater degree than the Japanese, 

 but there is sufficient evidence that thev 

 know how to make the most of their op- 

 portunities. France is only about twice 

 the size of Colorado, and considerably 

 smaller than Texas, and its soil has been 

 cultivated for nearly twenty centuries, yet 

 it supports a population of forty millions. 

 If its people were not both frugal and in- 

 dustrious, they never could have become 

 one of the greatest and richest nations 

 in the world, with money to lend to all 

 comers. The French public debt of six 

 billion dollars is all held at home, and in 

 addition the people own foreign securities 

 aggregating the stupendous sum of fifteen 

 billion dollars. It is further estimated 

 that an equal amount is placed in home 

 securities, and practically all of this 

 money comes from the savings accounts 

 of the lower classes. It was they who 

 supplied the one billion dollars to pay off 

 the German indemnity in 1871, and who 

 furnished the millions which de Lesseps 

 squandered in his Panama Canal enter- 

 prise, but despite this drain they seem to 

 have plenty of money left. 



These conditions are particularly inter- 

 esting in contrast with the wastefulness 

 and improvidence of our own people 

 A statistician estimates that the whole 

 French nation could live on what the 

 Americans waste. Certain it is that if 

 forty million Americans were huddled to- 

 gether in an area the size of France, they 

 would be reduced to the verge of bank- 

 ruptcy, national and individual, in a few 

 years, if they practiced the same waste- 



fulness that prevails here now. It is true 

 that France is blessed with a tremen- 

 dously fertile soil and a climate more 

 salubrious than that of any part of this 

 country except Florida or Southern Cali- 

 fornia, but this accounts only in part for 

 the wealth and prosperity of the French 

 people. 



Instances of American wastefvilness 

 abound on every hand, but there is no 

 better example than is afforded by the 

 devastation of the forests. Untold mil- 

 lions of board feet of timber are left every 

 vear by lumbermen to rot on the ground 

 or in stumps, and quantities almost as 

 vast are destroyed by forest fires. It was 

 scarcely a decade ago that the forests of 

 the United States were believed to be 

 inexhaustible, but now everybody who 

 knows anything of the subject is aware 

 that they are going so rapidly that their 

 complete extinction is a matter of only a 

 few vears. This fact is realized by the 

 railroads, the great lumbering concerns, 

 and other extensive users of timber, and 

 some of them are taking steps to replace 

 the forests already destroyed. But from 

 the planting of the seed to the cutting oi 

 the matured tree is a long time to wait — 

 from twent}- to thirty years — and in the 

 meantime where is the country to look for 

 its lumber supply ? This condition neve- 

 would have been brought about if ordi- 

 nary care had been used to protect the 

 forests. 



The deposits of minerals and metals are 

 going the same way In an address to 

 the Columbia University graduates in sci- 

 ence the other day. Dr. James Douglas 

 said that the "monstrous wastefulness" of 

 the mining methods in vogue in this coun- 

 tr\- would soon bring about the exhaus- 



