114 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



being greatly depleted, with far-reaching economic and industrial con- 

 sequences. 



Many people are deluding themselves with the idea that we do not 

 need to concern ourselves with regard to forests because of large virgin 

 supplies which still exist in the Pacific Northwest, the Inland Empire, 

 and California. I have even heard it suggested that if we should use 

 up or destroy all of the forests in the United States there are very 

 considerable quantities of wood supplies in the great river valleys of 

 Brazil and other South American countries. 



Leaders of the southern pine manufacturers state that the bulk of 

 the original supplies of yellow pine in the South will be exhausted in 

 ID vears, and that within the next five to seven years more than 3.000 

 manufacturing plants will go out of existence. This is an exceedingly 

 significant statement, because it means that the center of lumber pro- 

 duction of the United States will within no long time move to the Pa- 

 cific coast. While it does not mean that there will be an actual exhaus- 

 tion of all of the timber in the South, it does mean that the competitive 

 influence of southern pine in many markets will be withdrawn, and that 

 there will be the increase of prices that inevitably must follow such an 

 important economic occurrence as the shift of the center of supply of a 

 raw material one to three thousand miles. 



One of the most acute problems of forest supplies is that of wood 

 pulp, particularly the material suitable for news print. Already paper 

 manufacturers are embarrassed for supplies. Some of our principal 

 paper concerns have fortified themselves by purchasing large blocks of 

 timber in Canada. Many of you are familiar with the progressive 

 diminution of supplies in the regions like the White [Mountains, where 

 private owners are rapidly working back on the high slopes, even strip- 

 ping oiT areas which for general public benefits should be kept substan- 

 tiallv intact for all time. It is my hope that we may secure sufficient 

 public support to enable us to accelerate the acquisition by the Govern- 

 ment of the more important remaining areas before it is too late. The 

 claim is made that the Adirondack State Preserve should be opened to 

 cutting because of the urgent need of supplies for the paper mills in the 

 near future. 



The question of supplying the paper mills in Michigan and Wisconsin 

 is even more acute, and it is only a question of time when those mills 

 will have to import their pulpwood from a long distance or liquidate 

 investments of great value in waterpower and plant and move to new 

 sources of supplies. Partly due to the rapid exhaustion of the old 

 sources of wood-pulp supply and partly due to the tarifif laws of Can- 



