WHAT OF THE FUTURE OF THE EASTERN FORESTS 

 OF THE UNITED STATES? 



By Hon. S. B. Elliott 



Member of the Forestry Reservation Commission, Pennsylvania 



This article has for its object to call attention to the supreme im- 

 portance of the Eastern forest areas, and to the neglect and immediate 

 need of formulating definite plans for their recovery and management 

 on the part of professional men in order to secure public interest. 



That the forests of the United States east of the foothills of the 

 Rocky Mountains differ greatly from those west of that line no one 

 acquainted with both will dispute. Not only is there a difference in the 

 species of trees composing them, but the soil in which they grow and 

 the climate surrounding them bear little resemblance to each other, 

 while their present stages of exploitation and destruction are well 

 nigh antipodal. Prior to the exploitation of the forests of our country 

 the forest area east of the Rockies was far greater than that west; 

 but now the area of unexploited forests is greater west of that line 

 than east of it. Besides this the eastern ones have been, still are, and 

 will continue to be, called upon to supply a much greater population 

 with forest products, and these in greater range of use than those of the 

 west ; and that demand has reduced the eastern region to a much more 

 exhausted condition than the other, with no let-up in the demand, or 

 prospect of that demand diminishing; but, rather, it inevitably will be 

 increased. That the restoration and maintenance in useful perpetuity 

 of the eastern forests is a matter of supreme and vital importance to 

 the whole country, and that importance an increasing one, admits of no 

 truthful denial. 



A large portion of the western territory still has upon it consider- 

 able virgin or untouched wildwood forests where any and every method 

 for their maintenance in perpetuity that may be suitable to the varying 

 conditions can be resorted to ; and their treatment along practical lines 

 can safely be left to educated foresters who, in the future, should, and 

 doubtless will, have them in hand ; but in the east there is comparatively 

 little of such forests left, and what little there is is not likely to be 

 treated or exploited with any view to restoration and useful perpetuity 

 after exploitation; and hence any system having restoration and per- 

 petuity in contempation must necessarily be along lines quite different 

 in the east from what should prevail in the west. But what, if any- 



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