Outlook of the Timber Stipply. 93 



the annually recurring fires exists. And these fires, while they 

 may not destroy or even seriously damage the old crop, as in many 

 cases and conditions they do not, they kill with absolute certainty 

 all the young crop, and there is so far but little hope that they 

 will soon be stopped. What incentive can there be for private 

 interest in spending money or foregoing immediate revenue for a 

 crop, which is so readily lost? 



We may as well wake up to the realization that our efforts to 

 secure a more rational treatment of our forest resources and apply 

 forestry in their management, are not too early but rather too late, 

 that they are by no means sufficient, that serious trouble and in- 

 convenience are in store for us in the not too distant future, that 

 the blind indifference and the dallying or amateurish playing with 

 the problem by legislatures and officials is fatal. 



We can, then, summarize the situation, which justifies the 

 urgent need of the foresters' art in the United States, from the 

 point of view of supplies, as follows : 



(i) The consumption of forest supplies, larger than in any 

 other country in the world, promises not only to increase with the 

 natural increase of the population, but in excess of this increase 

 per capita, similar to that of other civilized, industrial nations, 

 annually at a rate of not less than 3 to 5 per cent. 



(2) The most sanguine estimate of timber standing predicates 

 an exhaustion of supplies in less than 30 years if this rate of con- 

 sumption continues, and of the most important coniferous sup- 

 plies in a very much shorter time. 



(3) The conditions for continued imports from our neighbor, 

 Canada, practically the only country having accessible supplies 

 such as we need, are not reassuring and may not be expected to 

 lengthen the natural supplies appreciably. 



(4) The reproduction of new supplies on the existing forest 

 area could under proper management be made to supply the 

 legitimate requirements for a long time; but fires destroy the 

 young growth over large areas, and where production is allowed 

 to develop, in the mixed forest at least, owing to the culling pro- 

 cesses, which remove the valuable kinds and leave the weed trees, 

 these latter reproduce in preference. 



(5) The attempts at systematic silviculture, that is, the grow- 

 ing of new crops, are so far infinitesimal, compared with the needs. 



B. E. Fernow. 



