210 TWENTY-FIRST RErORT. 



If it be urged that substitutes for timber are practicable, and that conse- 

 quently the need for forest products tends to decrease, it may be shown that 

 the forest area of France and Germa-ny already amounts to between 20-25% 

 of their total land area, and for many years has tended to increase, while at 

 the same time both countries have I)een large importers f^ that England, the 

 greatest importer, is planning an immediate and enormous increase in her 

 forests.^* 



If it be noted that concrete and steel have replaced much wood, it may 

 also be noted that constantly new uses for wood are found, as, for instance, 

 in the invention of "synthetic silk," made from wood pulp, or the use of wood- 

 cellulose to replace cotton in nitro-explosives. In this connection it may be 

 pointed out that cellulose chemistry is in its infancy, and that the forest 

 produces a greater dry-weight of material per acre per year than any other 

 crop,*" and, at that, on poorer sites and at less expense. If probabilities of the 

 future are in question, the forester will race his old spruce against the agrono- 

 mist's new peanut. 



In 1850 the world had no similar forest area of intrinsic value equal to 

 that of this state's pineries. For thirty years this state led the world in the 

 quantity and quality of its lumber output. Today the timber yield of the 

 state is negligible ; the state imports much more timber than it cuts, and cuts 

 much more timber than it grows. 



Pine is coming into Michigan from Arkansas, Mississippi and Montana ; 

 oak is coming in from Tennessee, Indiana and Virginia ; redwood from Cali- 

 fornia and cypress from Louisiana ; fir from AVashington, and cedar from 

 British Columbia. These are not more odds and ends of importations, but 

 enormous aggregates, representing millions of dollars, and as essential to the 

 conduct of the domestic affairs of the state as steel or coal or copper. Grand 

 Rapids furniture is made from lumber shipped an average of at least 1,000 

 miles ; Detroit automobile wheels are largely made from hickory grown and 

 cut in the South and shipped half across the continent. It is as though, 

 within fifty years, Iowa could no longer supply herself with corn, as though 

 California must go to Florida for oranges ; or as though the Keweenaw brought 

 in its ores from Butte. 



Michigan's freight bill on imported forest material " alone is enough to 

 reforest 500,000 acres a year. 



If it is certain that no modern nation can prosper industrially without 

 forests, it is still more certain that no nation can make successful war without 

 forest products. The war tested out in a very thorough manner the essential 

 items among our resources and manufactures. The winning of tile war was 

 as dependent upon the forests of France and America as upon the coal or 



^V. S. F. S. Butt. 83, 1910. 



2»Graves, Journal of Forestry, Feb. 1919, p. 116. 



■^Fernow, "Economics," p. 132. 



"Graves, loc. cit. 



