82 STATE BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



beeu made by the substitution of wood by other materials. It is a 

 significant fact that every civilized country of which we have a reliable 

 record is increasing, and gi-eatly increasing, its consumption of saw 

 timber. But it is almost startling to contemplate that it is probable 

 that almost all civilized countries are increasing their per capita con- 

 sumption of saw timber. The British Isles, having practically no 

 domestic timber supply, furnish the most reliable data on the tendencies 

 of modern Avood consumption under favorable conditions for substitu- 

 tion. The favorable conditions for substitution in this case are normally 

 high prices for timber (which must be imported), and an enormous 

 domestic production of coal, iron, steel, and other substituting products. 

 Yet we know that the per capita consumption of wood has increased in 

 that country with every decade in the nineteenth century. While we 

 have no such complete statistics of our consumption of the better grades 

 of timber, the latest census returns leave little doubt but that the same 

 is true in this country and even to a greater degree than in Great 

 Britain. 



Those who complacently rely on the substitution of wood by other prod- 

 ucts as a solution of the problem, have hardly thoughtfully considered 

 the extent to which wood enters into so many manufactures as a raw 

 material or the way in which it surrounds civilized people in every- 

 day life as a convenience, and perhaps we may say, as a necessity. 



I have said that one reason for the Bureau's offer was that the coun- 

 try needed the product of the woodlot. Many do not appreciate the im- 

 portance of the farmers' woodlot in the National economy. Pardon a 

 few statistics from the 12th census (1900). The average farm in the 

 United States contains 147 acres, of which seventy-three are improved 

 and seventy-four unimproved. This unimproved area of American farms 

 foots up the enormous total of 426,000,000 acres. This unimproved 

 area consists of woodlands, treeless swamps, and barren lands. A very 

 conservative estimate of the amount of unimproved farm lands in the 

 United States, capable of producing timber, is 300,000,000 acres. Think 

 what this means. A vast empire of actual and potential woodlots, cap- 

 able of producing, under intelligent management, much more than the 

 present consumption of saw timber in the United States. So much for 

 the possibilities. But the present actual production is by no means to 

 be despised. Before giving any further figures from the census it might 

 be well to say that fig-ures obtained by census enumerators are prone 

 to lie below the mark. This is especially true in regard to estimates 

 of product given by the rural population who have not infrequently a 

 thought of the possibility of such data being used by their mortal 

 enemy, the tax assessor, and govern their estimates accordingly. It 

 should also be borne in mind that the enumerators fail to reach some 

 lumbermen whose operations are carried on on a small scale. Hence 

 all product figures discussed may be relied upon to be below the mark. 



The value of the total product of the lumber camps of the United 

 States (including logs, bark for tanning, charcoal, rived shingles, ships' 

 knees, posts, ties, and all other products of lumber camps) was, in 1899, 

 174 million dollars.'* The value of the product of the woodlots of the 

 United States (including "only the wood, lumber, ties, etc., which the 



1 Vol. IX, p. 8]7, 12th census, 1900. 



