346 DEMAND FOR LUMBER. 



for improvements in metallm-gy and the working of iron, wliicb 

 have facihtated the substitution of that metal for wood, the last 



forest. A single establishment in Northern Italy used twenty-eight thousand 

 large walnut trees for that purpose in the years 1862 and 1863. 



The consumption of wood for lucif er matches is enormous, and I have heard 

 of several instances where tracts of pine forest, hundreds and even thousands 

 of acres in extent, have been purchased and felled, solely to supply timber for 

 this purpose. The United States Government tax, at one cent per hundred, 

 produced $2,000,000 per year, which shows a manufacture of 20,000,000,000 

 matches. Allowing nothing for waste, there are about fifty matches to the 

 cubic inch of wood, or 86,400 to the cubic foot, making in all upwards of 230,- 

 000 cubic feet, and, as only straight-grained wood, free from knots, can be 

 used for this purpose, the sacrifice of not less than three or four thousand 

 well-grown pines is required for this purpose. 



If we add to all this the supply of wood for telegraph-posts, wooden pave- 

 ments, wooden wall tapestry-paper, shoe-pegs, and even wooden nails, which 

 have lately come into use — not to speak of numerous other recent applications 

 of this material which American ingenuity has devised — we have an amoimt 

 of consumption, for entirely new purposes, which is really appalling. 



"Wooden field and garden fences are very generally used in America, and 

 some have estimated the consumption of wood for this purpose as not less than 

 that for architectural uses. 



Fully one-half our vast population is lodged in wooden houses ; and barna 

 and country out-houses of all descriptions are almost universally of the same 

 material. 



The consumption of wood in the United States as fuel for domestic purposes, 

 for charcoal, for brick and lime kilns, for breweries and distilleries, for steam- 

 boats, and many other uses, defies computation, and is vastly greater than is 

 employed in Europe for the same ends. For instance, in rural Switzerland, 

 cold as is the winter climate, the whole supply of wood for domestic fires, 

 dairies, breweries, distilleries, brick and lime kilns, fences, furniture, tools, 

 and even house-building and small smitheries, exclusive of the small quantity 

 derived from the trimmings of fruit-trees, grape-vines, and hedges, and from 

 decayed fences and buildings, does not exceed two hundred and thirty cubic 

 feet, or less than two cords a year, per household. — See Bericht uber die Uw 

 tersuchung der Schweiz Hochgebirgswaldungen, pp. 85-89. In 1789, Arthur 

 Young estimated the annual consumption of firewood by single families in 

 France at from two and a half to ten Paris cords of 134 cubic feet. — Travels, 

 vol. ii., chap. xv. See Wessely on Consumption of Wood in Austria. 



The report of the Commissioners on the Forests of Wisconsin, 1867, allows 

 three cords of wood to each person for household fires alone. Taking fami- 

 lies at an average of five persons, we have eight times the amount consumed 

 by an equal number of persons in Switzerland for this and all other purposes 

 to which this material is ordinarily applicable. I do not think the consump- 

 tion in the Northeastern States is at all less than the calculation for Wiscon- 

 sin. It has been estimated that in the cold climate of Sweden, 144 solid, or 

 200 loose, cubic feet of pine or fir are required per head of the population. 



