326 



'The exhaustion of the hardwood supply means the loss of 

 these industries to the States in which they are located. 

 * * '^ How intensely the whole country would feel the 

 loss of its hardwood timber * h< * can scarcely be real- 

 ized. * >^- * A general failure in crops may afifect indus- 

 trial conditions for a few years — a failure in the hardwood 

 supply would be a blight upon our industries through more 

 than a generation. 



THE SITUATIO'N IN BRIEF. 



"The situation in brief is this: We have about a fifteen 

 years' supply of hardwood lumber now ready to cut. * h^ * 

 The inevitable conclusion is that there are lean years close 

 ahead in the use of hardwood timber. There is to be a g'ap 

 in the supply which exists and the supply which will have to 

 be provided. How large that gap will be, depends upon how 

 soon and how effectively we begin to make provision for the 

 future supply. The present indications are that in spite of the 

 best we can do there will be a shortage of hardwoods running 

 through at least fifteen years. How acute that shortage may 

 become and how serious a check it will put upon the indus- 

 tries concerned cannot now be foretold. That it will strike at 

 the very foundation of some of the country's most important 

 industries is unquestionable. This much is true beyond doubt, 

 that we are dangerously near a hardwood famine and have 

 made no provision against it." 



After designating possible substitutes for hardwoods, such 

 as metal, concrete and softwoods, Mr. Hall says: 



THE ONLY PRACTICABLE SOLUTION. 



'There seems to be but one practicable solution, and that is 

 to maintain permanently, under a proper system of forestry, 

 a sufficient area of hardwood land to produce by growth a 

 large proportion of the hardwood timber which the nation re- 

 quires. * "•' "^^ The longer the delay in putting the forest 

 under control, the longer continued and more extreme will be 

 the shortage." 



The foregoing statements are those of professional salaried 

 experts, with nothing to s'ain by exaggeration, and are based 

 upon statistics made with all the exhaustive resources of the 

 United States Treasury. 



These statistics are brought right up to the year 1907, and 

 bring home to us, as nothing that I have yet seen does, the 

 fact that not only forest protection but forest reproduction is 

 of vital import to the sugar industry, as well as every other 

 industry in Hawaii. 



