HARDWOOD RECORD 



25 



Uas anyoni' nnytliint; to sayV If not. we will 

 leave tbis nintipr in the liiinds of the railway 

 and legislation ronimitlee. 



There is itne other paper here, gentlemen, that 

 I wish to apologize for — 1 should have apolo- 

 giied for my own, which yon will have to hear 

 — but 1 believe that it won't be very long, and 

 when you applaud — as 1 hope you will — please 

 remember that the gentleman is gray-h:tlred. It 

 is the report i>f the committee on forestry, by 

 Mr. Burkholder. 



Forestry Report, 



Mr. Hurkliolder -Til th.- nfficers and Members 

 of the Indiana llardwtHKl Lumbermen's Asso- 

 ciation : Kvery !uml>erman who is abreast with 

 current affairs is aware that the forests of our 

 country are being cut much faster than they are 

 growing, but few have .'iny definite idea of just 

 how long it may be. under present conditions 

 and methods, before certain woods now abun- 

 dant, will lie used up. Such Information is not 

 easy to obtain, and it Is impossible to give more 

 than estimates of the yearly growth. 



The data given In a circular based n\Hm the 

 statistics of forest products In IJMIti. compiled 

 by the Bureau of the Census and the Forest 



<■. II. Kic.\Mi;i:. i:n iiMiiMi, r>ii!i:rTOR. 



Service, shows (hat the following amount of 

 lumber was cut in the following years ; 



I'cai — Feet. 



ISSn 18.0S7..'!.")G.IM1II 



IWO 23.404, Sj;{,ii(iO 



moo .^4,780,,"V13,ooo 



I'.'Ot) .'iT.ooO.T.'Ui.UOil 



showing an Increase In twenty-six years of over 

 double. This Is not as accurate as it should be 

 for quite a number of small inills did not report, 

 and I think that 40.000.000,01 >o is about the 

 ngure. Then there is the amount of tiuiber that 

 is worked into lath, shingles, telephone, tele- 

 graph, and electric light poles, hewed cross-ties, 

 I»ulp wood, veneer, cooperage and round mine 

 limbers. Nor is this all. for we have to count 

 the fence posts and what Is used for fuel. From 

 this It will iM? seen that all statistics and con- 

 servative estimates Indicate that our consump- 

 tion of wood in all forms Is at least one hun- 

 dred billion feet annually. One leading aulh<u-- 

 ity has estimated It at one huntlred and ttfty 

 billion feet. 



The question is, how long will our timber 

 supply last at the present rate of cutting'; The 

 estimates of standing timlwr In the Inited 

 States are by no means satisfactory. There Is 

 estimated to be from fifteen hundred billions, to 

 two thousand billion feet of standing timber, 

 and at the rate It is being cut fifteen to twenty 

 years is the limit. 



In the last seven years the cut of soft woods 

 has Increased nearly double, while the most Im- 

 portant of hardwoods, oak and poplar, has de- 

 creased, nak has decreased .■iti.4 per cent and 

 poplar :!S.i per cent. While there have been 

 many substitutes used, they have not lessened 

 the demand for lumber. The per capita con- 

 sumption in ISSO was atio feet : In lOitC it had 

 increased to 440 feet. You will notice that the 

 rate of increase in the ctit <if lumber in the last 

 six years is very small, while the per capita is 

 greater and will continue to be so as long as 

 there Is an.v timber to be cut. 



With only fifteen to twenty years' supply of 

 timber left, we lumbermen cannot afford to cut 

 prices. Taking everything into consideration, 

 they are too low now; It only needs a realiza- 

 tion of the true state of affairs to send prices 

 up and keep them going. With the supply rap- 

 idly being exhausted and the demand still on 

 the increase, the law of supply and demand will 

 in the near future send the prices up faster than 

 they have ever gone before. We lumbermen 

 cannot afford to cut prices. 



I'resident Barnaby — We should not pass this 

 important subject without hearing from some of 

 the lumbermen. For many years people have 

 closed their ears to the question of forestry. I 

 never planted a tree in m.v life — well, yes, I 

 guess I did plant one once when I was a boy, 

 on Arbor Day, but it has died since. I would 

 like to hear from someone else on this subject, 

 rhere should be someone here who could give 

 us A little talk. Mr. Stimson has some thou- 

 sands of acres of timberland which he is saving, 

 and we would like him to give us a few words. 



Mr. Stimson — If the president will tell me 

 where the land is I will be glad to talk about 

 it. [Laughter.] 



President Barnaby — There Is a gentleman here 

 of whom we will hear a great deal before 12 

 o'clock tonight. Fie is one of the old-timers of 

 Indiana, and has given the matter' of lumber 

 and forestry a great deal of thought, and we 

 would like to hear him say a few words on this 

 proposition — Mr. John M. Woods of Boston. 



A Notable Address. 



Mr. Woods — Mr. Chairman and Children; I 

 have been intensely interested in all of the pro- 

 ceedings of this convention. In the first place 

 I wish to extend to you my most sincere thanks, 

 Mr. I'resident and this association, for your 

 i-ordlal invitation to be here. 



This subject of forestry has been one of the 

 subjects that has been nearest my heart for 

 more than thirty years. I believe that I have 

 realized in the past, as we all do today, what a 

 splendid heritage we had in the beginning and 

 how it is being destroyed, and there is nothing 

 to take its place. 



I was Interested In the suggestions of the 

 chairman of the committee on railways, that 

 more business men should be elected to your 

 legislature and mine. I am a busy man, and 

 you, as a rule, are busy men, but I believe that 

 there are some things which a man ought to do 

 even though he Is busy. The question was 

 asked centuries ago, "Am I my brother's keep- 

 er';" Another question was asked, "Who is my 

 neighbor?" I have been always what you might 

 <-all a practical politician, not a candidate for 

 office, but I have said for forty years that as 

 long as I paid taxes I would hare something to 

 say as to how the money should be s|>ent, and 

 that I would have something to say as to who 

 should spend the money I pay in taxation and 

 who should legislate for me, and make the laws 

 I have to live under. In our commonwealth we 

 once had a great forest that was considered 

 valuable. We are old and you are young as 

 compared with us — for in ]tj.31 the colonists, 

 eleven years after they landed, realized the 

 value of the forests, for they had come from a 

 country that thousands of years of settlement 

 had practically denuded — England — and they 

 passed the most stringent laws. Of course the 

 thing to he dreaded then was fire, and any man 



that set a fire between the first of November 

 and the first of March was to pay half the dam- 

 ages, and be publicly whipped. This was in 

 a certain sense to keep the Indians from setting 

 fires. The whole country was heavily wooded 

 land. I have thought a good many times, Mr. 

 ■ 'resident, that If some man could write the his- 

 tory of the lumber business from the Iteglnning, 

 it would be a most Interesting book. I know of 

 no book, gentlemen, that is such a standard 

 for forestry legislation, as the (iood Book. The 

 great God Almighty laid down certain rules and 

 If we would observe and maintain them we 

 would keep our forests. 



The first Intimation we have of anyone using 

 lumber was .N'oali. and he had his trouble the 

 same as the lumbermen of today, but the Lord 

 told htm of what kind of wood to make the ark. 

 ^^^len we come to Solomon's time we find spe- 

 cific directions about the building of the temple, 

 King Solomon's temple, and we find the infer- 

 ence there, that men were human then just the 

 same as they are nf)W. Now Solomon, king of 

 the Israelites, and Hiram, king of Tyre, are both 

 dead, and we are at liberty to criticize them If 

 we feel like it — now of course I do not know 

 about any of these things cxcetit what the 



,iA.Mi:s isrcKi.m". i'.i;niiK\ n.i.i;. dikkctok. 



record says, but we are allowed to draw our in- 

 ferences. This timber required many thousand 

 men to get it out and bring it down to Jerusa- 

 lem. When the job was completed Hiram, king 

 of Tyre, made Solomon a present of twenty 

 <-ities. and Solomon returned it with a present of 

 gold. Now this begins to look as if there was a 

 little graft even at that time, but then we think 

 that this was rather excusable when we take 

 into consideration that Solomon bad seven hun- 

 dred wives and three hundred concubines, and 

 had to keep them In new hats and bonnets — 

 with all due respect to the ladles — and we know 

 that he could use a present of a few cities, for 

 they bought and sold cities then the same as we 

 buy and sell lumber today. 



From colonist days things came down prac- 

 tically unchanged to revolutionary times, and 

 from that date to this practically nothing has 

 been done. About twenty-five years ago as a 

 member of the legislature I called the attention 

 of the state to the fad that the forests were be- 

 ing depleted and that there was nothing coming 

 to take their place, for the woodworking indus- 

 try of our commonwealth. When I began forty 

 years ago. Boston was the renter of the furni- 

 ture Industry of the I'nlted States. Ninety-five 

 per cent of the business of the lumber dealers 

 of that day was with furniture manufacturers, 

 and not .1 per cent today. Our supply has been 



