962 JOURNAL OF FORKSTRY 



in 1909. The use of substitutes has not, to be sure, decreased the 

 annual cut, but it has brought it to a standstill. The future of our tim- 

 ber supplies is indicated in the report upon the lumber industry issued 

 by the Federal Commissioner of Corporations in 1910. In this report 

 it was estimated that at the current rate of cutting our timber supplies 

 would last fifty-five years longer. In other words, our timber supplies 

 are being reduced now at a rate of about 2 per cent a year. Again, 

 investigation by the Federal Forest Service indicates that in the twenty- 

 two years preceding 1908, the average increase in the price of ten im- 

 portant species of lumber at New York was only 3 per cent a year, not 

 a startling increase when it is remembered that commodities of all 

 kinds increased in value during that period. The proximity of these 

 two figures of percentage, 2 per cent and 3 per cent, is a circumstance 

 worthy at least of careful contemplation. 



Private owners of forest lands are not ignorant of the facts made 

 public by these reports. Private owners have, furthermore, modified 

 their methods in response to the decrease in timber supplies, or, to be 

 more accurate, in response to the increasing values of timber caused by 

 the decrease in the supplies. Naturally, conservative methods under 

 private ownership have begun in the localities where market conditions 

 render such methods financially correct. Where stumpage prices have 

 reached figures high enough to demand their attention, private owners 

 have eliminated the old-time waste in high stumps and careless skid- 

 ding, and the most complete utilization practically possible in mill and 

 yard is required. Furthermore, where the trend of stumpage prices 

 warrants, and where conservative methods of lumbering are practical, 

 as in extensive portions of the spruce region of the Northeast and in 

 the second-growth hardwood region of New England and the Middle 

 Atlantic States, attention is given to the protection of young growth 

 and even to the reservation of the smaller merchantable trees for future 

 rather than for present cutting. Where young timber is cut, the de- 

 mands of the market, not the wantonness of owners, must be held re- 

 sponsible. The exigencies of personal or local conditions, of course, 

 not infrequently necessitates cutting of a kind which the owners realize 

 is wasteful and unprofitable even to themselves; but such cutting is not 

 the rule, and it is by no means a general evil inseparable from private 

 ownership. Not only conservative cutting, but even planting, solely 

 for the production of timber crops, has made its small, but appreciable 

 beginning in the region where growth and market conditions together 

 are most favorable, namely, in the white-pine region of New England. 



A moment's thought, then, brings before us the future of our timber 



