TIMBER SUPPLY GREELEY 541 



the softwood forests of Siberia as the principal source of supply 

 would differ from our present situation only in degree. 



And as geography controls the cost of the products of virgin 

 forests when they reach the ultimate consumer in Massachusetts, 

 Illinois, or Florida, so will geography control the substitution of 

 other sources of timber supply. Most of the other countries have 

 progressed from one stage to another in their source of wood more 

 or less as single geographical units. In the United States the dis- 

 tances are so great and the local conditions so diverse that this 

 transition is bound, for some time to come, to be regional rather 

 than national. We have already seen that, owing to the concentra- 

 tion of the paper industry in the northeastern States, more than 

 half of our consumption of wood fiber products is now drawn from 

 foreign sources. And by the same token the exigencies of the por- 

 tions of the countr}!' farthest removed from the dwindling frontier 

 of virgin forests are driving them to a new source of wood — namely, 

 the timber crop. 



Forestry is the economic competitor of transportation. As long 

 as cheap virgin stumpage available at no great distance dominated 

 our lumber and paper markets there was no place in the economic 

 scheme of things for systematic timber growing. But once the cost 

 of transporting forest products from the nearest virgin sources 

 exceeds the cost of growing them at home, timber culture not only 

 becomes economically feasible but sooner or later is impelled by 

 purely commercial forces. This is just what is taking place to-day, 

 to a limited degree, in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and 

 New Jersey; and, to a still more limited degree, in the South. 

 Second-growth white pine in New England, 30 or 40 years old, is 

 worth from $15 to $20 per thousand board feet standing in the 

 woods. Second-growth southern pine of the same age brings from 

 $8 to $12 on the stump. With such returns before them and with 

 timber values constantly moving upward, hard-headed business men 

 realize that forestry pays. One might almost plat the process by a 

 series of geographical zones, and show that when the freight rate 

 into any consuming region from the nearest large supply of virgin 

 timber passes the $10 or $12 mark, an economic basis for timber 

 cropping is afforded and forestry slowly finds a place in the use of 

 land. 



Forest conservation in the United States hitherto has been largely 

 a matter of public ownership of timberland and public policies 

 based not upon costs and profits but upon foresight of coming na- 

 tional necessities. To-day it is percolating down into the counting- 

 house and the directors' board room. The illusion of inexhaustible 

 virgin forests has spent itself. Wood-using industries recognize the 

 alternatives which they face — producing their future raw material 



