323 



"We are rapidly using up our forest capital. Our present 

 annual consumption of wood in all forms is from three to four 

 times as great as the annual increment of our forests. * * * 

 Every indication points to the fact that under present condi- 

 tions the maximum annual yield of forest products for the 

 country as a whole has been reached, and that in a compara- 

 tively short time there will be a marked decrease in the total 

 output, as there is nov/ in several items. Neither is there any 

 great supply of timber to turn to outside of the United States. 

 With the exception of importations of small quantities of 

 high-class woods like mahogany, the only promising souice 

 is Canada ; but most of the timber there will be required at 

 home. Even now Douglas fir (Northwest) is bringing higher 

 prices in Canada than in American markets." 



DR. FERNOW ON. THE LUMBER SHORTAGE. 



In February, 1907, Dr. B. E. Fernow, one of the leading 

 forestry authorities in the United States, made the following 

 statement in an article published in Forestry and Irrigation 

 for February, 1907: 



"One hundred and fifty years ago Germany found herself 

 in very much the same condition as regards her forest re- 

 sources as we are today in the United States — all accessible 

 portions more or less culled, or in poor coppice, burnt over, 

 and damaged by cattle, the valuable virgin timber mostly con- 

 fined to distant and inaccessible locations. Sporadic attempts 

 existed here and there at protection, at regulation of the cut, 

 at conservative lumbering, and still more sporadic attempts 

 at reforestation. * * =)= Yet until the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century reduction of supplies without adequate 

 reproduction proceeded, and around the year 1800 the wood 

 famine had become acute, giving rise to the same kind of 

 agitation and literature which we have experienced, even to 

 bringing in the catalpa, and other such small rapid growers 

 as the saviors of the nation.' 



PROFITABLE FORESTRY IN EUROPE. 



"The severity of the timber shortage in Germany at that 

 time was temporarily relieved through increased production 

 of coal and the building of railroads in hitherto inaccessible 

 forest regions. Then came the vigorous organization of a 

 settled policy of forest management, based upon the principle 

 of sustained' yield, or the cutting of the increment only, with- 

 out lessening the wood capital. The results of this policy 

 were that in Saxony the cut increased between the years 1820 

 and 1890 just 50%, and up to 1904 has increased by another 

 5%. 



