bo 
Cas | 
The Need for Action 
The lumber cut decreased 59 per cent in the 12 years 
ending with 1919. 
The lumber supplied by the State to its secondary 
industries decreased 65 per cent in the seven years sub- 
sequent to 1912. 
Approximately two-thirds of the lumber used in the 
State is imported. 
Because of devastation the forest lands no longer can play 
their part in supplying the rapidly growing need. Sixty-two 
per cent of the lands which normally should be producing 
timber are either denuded or contain only fuel or acid wood. 
The annual cut, relatively small though it is, is three to five 
times as great as the amount which the failing powers of the 
forest areas can produce under present conditions. 
The quality and sizes of the material produced are greatly 
depreciated from the former high standards. 
In 1919 New York manufacturers paid approximately 
$11,000,000 for lumber grown in New York, while the lumber 
imported cost about $66,000,000. 
Sixty-six millions of dollars were sent outside the State for 
material of which fully two-thirds could be grown to equal 
or better advantage in New York. 
Some of the imported lumber came 3,000 miles by rail. 
Every mile of hauling added to the cost of finished products. 
Every foot of lumber, every cord of pulpwood imported 
costs more because of this wasteful expenditure of coal and 
labor in hauling. 
Men could no longer afford to build or buy wooden houses, 
the cheapest form of dwelling. 
Newspapers had to restrict operation because of the scarcity 
of newsprint in a State once famous for its spruce. 
Directly or indirectly every commodity of life cost more 
because of the depleted supply of forest products. 
Every citizen paid, and is still paying — and for a long time 
will continue to pay — an unnecessarily large part of his income 
for shelter and food and clothing, furniture, fuel, amusements, 
