534 ANNUAL REPOKT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 1925 



The United States is still in the first of those throe stages. By far 

 the greater part of the "wood we use is still obtained from our o^Yn vir- 

 gin forests. But the end of this supply is jjlainly in sight. The neces- 

 sity is at hand of finding a new source of wood, cither in timber 

 culture on our own soil or in the forests of other countries. The 

 consum])tion of timber in this country is so enormous that the prob- 

 lem assumes staggering proportions. We use annually about 12,- 

 000,000,000 cubic feet of saw-log timber, or nearly half of the -quan- 

 tity consumed in the entire world. Our use of all forest products, 

 including pulpwood, railroad tics, mine timbers, and fuel wood, ag- 

 gregates 22,500,000,000 cubic feet, or about two-fifths of the j^early 

 consumption in the entire world. 



Other countries Avhich have likewise exhausted their virgin forests 

 have found new sources of wood either in the practice of forestry or 

 through imports from their neighbors, or by combining both of these 

 methods, without sudden industrial upheavals or serious timber 

 famines. Their consumption of forest products lias been relatively 

 small ; the change was gradual and usually involved no great difficulty. 

 The enormous use of wood in the United States, however, and its inti- 

 mate relation to national living standards, manufactures, and basic in- 

 dustries like agriculture, mining, and transportation, make our prob- 

 lem far more serious. We must find, almost overnight, a fresh source 

 of raw material sufficient to supply sixty or seventy million tons of 

 forest products annualh^ Instead of a gradual industrial evolution, 

 the change is coming with the suddenness of an economic crisis. 



The forest history of the United States herself strikingly illus- 

 trates the relation of geography to timber supply. To the colonists 

 and explorers of the seventeenth centur}'-, America appeared a vast, 

 unbroken forest. Even after geographers had mapped the full 

 extent of the prairies and western deserts thev found that nearly 

 half of her total land area, or more than 820,000,000 acres, was origi- 

 nally in forest. Although the export of timber products began in 

 the earl}' days of the Atlantic Colonies, for several generations the 

 forest rejiresented a barrier to settlement and migration rather than 

 an economic resource. Nothing could have appeared more remote 

 than a shortage of timber. About 200,000,000 acres of our original 

 forest area has been cleared for cultivation and settlement, and the 

 stumpage removed from three-fourths of it was destroyed for lack 

 of a marlvct. 



When the manuracture of lumber at little sawmills, run by v.ater 

 power, became a fairly establislied industr}^, there was no lack of the 

 finest raw material at their very doors. Lumber was moved but very 

 short distances and its cost was exceedingly low. In 173G pine lum- 

 ber prices in New England were commonl}- around $5 per thousand 



