930 JOURNAL OK FORESTRY 



When it does our freight bill on the same quantity of lumber now- 

 shipped will amount to 6-50 million dollars a year, even if freight rates 

 are not increased. And lumber represents but 35 per cent of our 

 traffic in forest products. 



As region after region is devastated, one valuable species of timber 

 after another can no longer be obtained in large quantities at reason- 

 able prices. White pine has given place to southern pine, southern 

 pine to hemlock. White ash, cedar, yellow poplar, cherry, and hickory 

 are today so scarce and so expensive as to limit their use for purposes 

 in which all available substitutes are much less satisfactory. Well 

 within 20 years still other highly important species, such as cypress, 

 longleaf pine, and high-grade oak, will be equally unavailable. More- 

 over, the consumer suffers constantly by the persistent lowering of 

 quality, for not only do prices steadily increase, but the higher prices 

 do not buy such useful material as was recently available. 



DEVASTATION AND THE FOREST COMMUNITY 



With the opening of great forest areas come new camps, new rail- 

 roads, sawmills, and industries dependent upon the forest for raw 

 material. Towns develop about them, with new commerce and new- 

 life. With the opening of local markets for food supplies comes also 

 the development of new farms. More people move in ; the region 

 booms ; business is good. 



Soon new roads and schools are needed and more tax money must 

 be raised. Timber, being the only considerable local resource, must 

 carry the cost of local improvements. Taxes on the timber now go up. 

 Lumbering proceeds rapidly, and far faster than the clearing of the 

 land for farms. But as the timber is cut the principal tax resource 

 dwindles and taxes upon the remainder must increase, often to a point 

 which forces still more rapid lumbering. 



Within a few years the timber is gone ; the resource which sus- 

 tained all local industry is exhausted ; the prosperity of the com- 

 munity has been exported without provision for the future ; and the 

 slash fires have taken what little the lumberman happened to leave. 



With the exhaustion of the timber supplies, the sawmills and other 

 wood-working plants must be junked or moved again to new forest 

 areas, taking with them much of the local population. 'Business now 

 falls oiT, stores are boarded up, and railroad lines are dismantled. The 

 local market for farm produce shrinks or disappears, as people move 

 away. Tax returns become too small to maintain local improvements ; 



