1884.] THE DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS. 129 



THE DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS. 



ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. 



ATTENTION has been previously called in these pages to the 

 havoc which has been going on for so many years in the 

 forests of every quarter of the globe ; but no apology can be necessary 

 for returning to a subject which must speedily compel the hearing 

 now too generally denied. The chief seat of the destruction is at 

 present in the United States, where it has been long progressing at a 

 rate which has often excited the fears even of the persons engaged 

 in it. But some facts and figures just published in an American 

 journal are of a kind which, combined with the manner of their 

 statement, should surely have power to do more than raise au 

 incredulous eyebrow. It is said tliat " the lumber industry will, in 

 all prubaljility, in the course of ten years or so, be transferred from 

 the northern lake region to the south." Few persons will realize all 

 that this matter-of-fact announcement implies ; but it is, in reality, 

 a comprehensive admission of the trutlr of the charges made against 

 the lumbermen's practices. It means this : that the twenty years, 

 which a short time since was the period allowed by the Lumbermen's 

 Exchange in Chicago " for the exhaustion of the pine forests of their 

 district," formed an unnecessarily liberal estimate. The statement 

 means, moreover, that when the 146,000 hands now engaged in the 

 business have felled the last tree in the northern territory, they will 

 1)0 by no means content with the contemplation of their work. 

 " The magnificent pineries of ]\Iichigan and other States in the lake 

 region are fast disappearing before the axe ; but the wliole south is 

 a forest region, and when the northern lumber supply fails the great 

 saw-mills will be removed to the southern forests, and these will 

 become the new centres of the industry." There is a savour almost 

 of brutality about this bare summary of the situation. No touch of 

 regret softens either record or forecast ; and that the latter will in due 

 course be justified, there seems unhappily little reason to doubt. 

 During seven months of the year 200,000 feet of lumber are daily 

 sawn into planks in one mill in Ottawa, and there are over 25,000 

 such establisliments at work in tlie country. It is obvious that not 

 even the majestic areas of the Ameiican forests can long stand before 

 such a terribly destructive force, exercised witliout judgment, and 

 succeeded by no system that makes practical restitution to the soil. 

 Of the results of this wholesale denudation there are already abundant 

 signs. In the States chiefly affected, the volume of many of the 

 tributary streams is lessened, droughts are frequent, and the productive 

 •pialities of the neighbouring farms seriously impaired. It was 



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