232 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ignorant action of man, it is doubtful whether, on the existing area, 

 one half the amount of wood is produced yearly which we now re- 

 quire. AVe have, therefore, beyond doubt, reached — if not passed — 

 the time when increased drain means squandering of capital, and when 

 regard to husbanding, to careful management, to recuperation of our 

 forests, and planting of new forests is required for the purpose of 

 merely furnishing raw material ; and it should not be forgotten that 

 to reproduce the quick-growing white pine of an acceptable quality and 

 sufficient size, requires not less than eighty to one hundred years, and 

 for the long-leaved pine two hundred years ; that, altogether, wood- 

 crops are slow crops ; that nothing of size can be grown under a 

 quarter of a century at the best. 



That this is a business requiring intelligent national consideration 

 is apparent ; not less so if we appreciate the magnitude of the values 

 resulting from it. The total value of forest products in the census 

 year was placed at $700,000,000, or ten times the value of the gold and 

 silver production, five times the value of all coal and mineral produc- 

 tion, and exceeding every one of the agricultural crops, corn and wheat 

 not excepted ; and representing in value about thirty per cent of the 

 total agricultural production. 



Turning to our concern in the climatic aspects of the forestry ques- 

 tion, I have recorded my skepticism as regards a wide-reaching forest in- 

 fluence upon the climate of a country; and since the influence can only 

 be local, since its nature and scope depend on geographical position, 

 configuration, elevation, the neighborhood of large water surfaces, and 

 prevailing winds, etc., it is evident that it is entirely impossible to speak 

 of a safe percentage of forest-cover for a continental country like ours. 

 The climatic factors at work and the requirement of regulating in- 

 fluences on the Atlantic shore have no bearing on considerations of the 

 Pacific, and what the treeless plains need may not be needed by the 

 lake-bordered States. A proportion of forest which has been suggested 

 as safe, without any proper basis, however, is twenty-five per cent. 



In order to study the need of considering forest climatic influences, 

 I have divided the country roughly, as far as our scanty forest statis- 

 tics permit, into eight or ten regions, or rather grouped the States to- 

 gether, which are more or less similarly situated as regards possible 

 climatic influences of a cosmic nature. These groups are, to some ex- 

 tent, arbitrary, and, being based upon political divisions, for which 

 alone approximate forest statistics exist, can not closely correspond to 

 the range of actual climatic conditions. It would a])pear, however, 

 that the Atlantic States, with over forty-three per cent of forest, as 

 well as the Gulf and central Southern States, and even the lake-bor- 

 dered Northern lumbering States, with nearly fifty per cent of forest- 

 cover, can not, in general, be said to have gone below that safe propor- 

 tion for climatic considerations ; though in special localities the inroads 

 may have been severe enough to produce undesirable results. But the 



