FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 61 



the values of wood substitutes, that for the weight of the material 

 there. is nothing yet equal to wood in value for nearly all the purposes 

 for which it is used. 



We must not forget in this category of needs the fuel question. This 

 has been unusually emphasized during the last winter. The price of 

 wood is increasing beyond the ability of the people to pay. The anthra- 

 cite coal fields will eventually give out. That form of capital will be 

 entirely destroyed. There will be an end to the oil fields, and natural 

 gas is already on the decline. These losses can be met in an economical 

 and practical way through the growth of timber for fuel and, when we 

 reflect that one hundred years growth of timber takes less of essential 

 material from the soil than a single crop of potatoes, we can understand 

 how our poorer soils are so well adapted to the purposes of reforesta- 

 tion. 



I must not forget in this category to call your attention to that tre- 

 mendous draught upon our timber which is today made by the pulp mills 

 in the manufacture of material to feed the never satisfied appetite of 

 the printing press. This is no place for statistics but, if I could throw 

 the figures at you, you could not but be strongly impressed by the loss 

 of capital which is daily demonstrated through the turning of wood into 

 paper. If we had no resource for meeting this tremendous draught 

 upon our material resources in a practical way we should, when we con- 

 template the future, find in it a deep source of misery. But intelligence 

 put into the problem of reforestation finds a solution for the serious 

 menace of the timber famine; and through the utilization of the tre- 

 mendous areas of thin lands in our State we can meet the continuous re- 

 quirements of 'a growing population for timber to the end of time. 



Incidentally in connection with increasing the timber resources of the 

 State there can be furnished a never-ending amount of employment for 

 an army of laborers and, through the use of the product which they will 

 conserve and harvest, there will be continued the wonderful diversity 

 of employment which today is one of the best advertisements of our State. 



I received only a few days ago a letter from a friend who is now 

 sojourning in southern Europe, a lover of trees, a large emploA^er of 

 labor, and he says the most depressing thing in connection with the 

 conditions in southern Europe is the lack of forest areas and the lost 

 conditions of health and wealth and happiness which have resulted from 

 timber destruction with no attempt at returning the beneficent soil 

 cover. 



I am not a calamity howler, nor 'am I prone to take a pessimistic view 

 of the future, but in the few years that I have given to the study of for- 

 ests and forestry I am convinced that a responsibility rests upon this 

 generation of Michigan people to stem the tide of tree destruction, and as 

 far as possible 'awaken an interest in and a love for tree planting which 

 shall carry in its wake blessings unnumbered and which will open to 

 the future a bright vista of promise which today is clouded as a result 

 of ruthless forest destruction. 



