544 ANNUAL, EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



terials and the curtailed use of wood for many of its old functions, 

 the total drain upon our forests thus far has not materially les- 

 sened. The danger lies not in reducing the use of wood where 

 satisfactory substitution is possible, but in the arrowing shortage 

 for many essential needs for which there are no substitutes. In 

 most of the industrial countries of Europe the per capita consump- 

 tion of wood is not diminishing but increasing; and the United 

 States can not expect ^^ernumently to follow a dilTerent course if it 

 is to hold its living standards and retain its industrial leadership. 



One of the most essential constructive remedies is to reduce the 

 drain upon our forests by reducing the waste in the manufacture 

 and use of their products. The very abundance and cheapness of 

 virgin timber in the United States has bred wasteful methods of 

 logging, manufacture, and refabrication which are yielding but 

 slowly to the pressure of scant supply and high costs. The general* 

 application of even our present knowledge of waste elimination in 

 logging, milling, and refabricating lumber, in timber preservation, 

 in the conversion of wood into fiber products and the like, would 

 reduce the current drain upon our forests by 20 or 25 per cent. 

 And we still have much to learn before all the possibilities of econ- 

 omy in the use of our forests are fathomed. The elimination of 

 preventable losses from forest fires and from destructive insects and 

 tree diseases would save an enormous total of useful timber. A 

 cord of wood saved is equal to a cord of wood grown. And one 

 of the most obvious things that should be done with all possible 

 dispatch is to conserve our existing timber supply to the last foot 

 by research in the conversion and use of forest products on an ade- 

 quate scale, accompanied by wide dissemination of its results 

 through the forest industries and forest consumers. 



After everything else has been said, no solution of our forest prob- 

 lem is possible without the generous growing of trees. AVe must 

 come, in the last analysis, as every other country treading the same 

 path has come, to forestry as the necessary and economic employ- 

 ment of much of our land. This solution is as complete as it is 

 inevitable. Intensive timber culture on the 470,000,000 acres of 

 forest land in the United States, timber culture on a par Avith that 

 of Germany, France, and Scandinavia, can produce a yearly crop 

 equivalent to more than all the wood which the United States now 

 consumes. There will be a margin of 20 per cent or more to take 

 care of the greater requirements of the future. The onl}^ question 

 is how quickly can this be brought to pass and how much national 

 suffering must be endured before a perpetual supply of timber is 

 assured on our own soil. National habits in the use of land and 

 its resources change slowly; and at best we must travel a slow and 

 painful road before the goal is reached. 



