OUR FORESTRY-PROBLEM. 231 



mills, which have depleted, in less than fifty years, a crop which it 

 takes one hundred and fifty years to replace, is sufiicient to rob the 

 immense forest areas of the South of their valuable timber in very much 

 less than twenty-five years — timber which it has taken one hundred 

 and fifty to two hundred and fifty years to grow ; and, though almost 

 inconceivable quantities of standing timber are reported from the Pa- 

 cific coast, even with the utmost stretch of the imagination, consid- 

 ering the wasteful manner in wliich that supply is being consumed, 

 there can not be a sufficient supply standing to meet the present re- 

 quirements of the whole nation for fifty years. 



It is a most farcical attempt at deception which has been practiced 

 in comparing the supplies of one particular region with the present re- 

 quirements of that region. We are one country, one nation ; and, unless 

 we build Chinese walls around our different sections, the resources of 

 the entire country must be placed in comparison with the requirements 

 of the entire country. The only rational way of looking at the re- 

 quirements and supplies of a large continental nation like ours seems 

 to me the following : According to latest estimates, we consume yearly, 

 with our present population of sixty million, not less than twenty bill- 

 ion cubic feet of wood. This amount is made up, in round figures, in 

 the following manner : 



2,500,000,000 feet for lumber-market and wood-manufactures ; 

 360,000,000 feet for railroad construction ; 

 250,000,000 feet for charcoal ; 

 500,000,000 feet for fence material, etc. ; 

 17,500,000,000 feet for fuel. 



To this it will be safe to add, for wasteful practices and for the de- 

 struction by yearly conflagrations, at the least, twenty-five per cent. 



The average yearly growth of wood per acre in the well-stocked 

 and well-cared-for forests of Germany has been computed at fifty cubic 

 feet. Applying this figure to our present requirements, we should have 

 an area of not less than five hundred million acres in well-stocked for- 

 est to give us a continual supply of all kinds for our present needs. 

 Now, a careful canvass made four years ago developed the result that 

 the existing forest area in the United States, excluding Alaska and 

 Indian Territory, comprised almost five hundred million acres (489,- 

 280,000) ; but it is well known to everybody who is acquainted with 

 our forests that they can not compare in yield with the average Euro- 

 pean continental forests under systematic management. Much of what 

 is reported as forest is useless brush-land, or open woods, and depre- 

 ciated in its capacity for wood-production by annual fires, by which the 

 physical structure of the leaf-mold is destroyed, and thus, too, its ca- 

 pacity for storing the needful moisture, reducing wood-production, and 

 killing all young growth. 



Without care, without management, and left to the kind but un- 

 economical work of Nature, interfered with, in addition, by rude and 



