CONFKRENCE ON HOME-GROWN TIMBER. 37 



American thinks the foundation of his country's development. 

 The result is that the woods of the United States, vast as they 

 seem, are not vast enough now for their own requirements, and 

 the annual cutting of the woods is reckoned to be three times 

 the annual growth. Of course in North America there is also 

 destruction by fire. I believe that fire consumes seven to ten 

 times as much timber as falls to the lumbermen's axe. You 

 may therefore write off America altogether as a source of 

 supply. 



" In Canada things have not yet got to the same point, but 

 they must come to it. The supplies of Russia, which we were 

 accustomed to think limitless, are, after all, not much more 

 than those of Canada and the United States added together, 

 and they are still of more uncertain quality. Though I have 

 heard many people say that the woods of Russia can never be 

 exhausted, I have never heard reliable evidence as to the area 

 and composition of these woods. A Russian official told me 

 that the woods have not yet been surveyed, and that vast tracts 

 consist of swamps or thin birchwood, or have been devastated. 

 Though there are very large reserves in North Russia, they 

 cannot carry on the world for very many years. The point is 

 that it takes seventy-five years to prepare against a timber 

 famine, and therefore anything that has to be done should 

 be done in good time. 



" I have ventured on this preliminary disquisition because, as 

 I say, the whole subject is so often prejudiced by a belief utterly 

 unfounded, that if we can get imports we can get all the 

 timber we require. It is not the case. I believe the Russian 

 Bolshevist has in his hands, if he likes to use it, an extra- 

 ordinary weapon against the rest of the woild by withholding 

 supplies of timber. 



" Now to come to the position of home-grown timber in this 

 country, the best timber that we grow here, and I am only now 

 speaking of the best, has never had a fair chance in our market. 

 Taking it over the whole, you may say that home-grown timber 

 has been considered the refuse of the market. I know our best 

 timber has very often been put to good use, but it has gone to 

 supplement supplies of timber brought from abroad, and those 

 who have used it have not known whether it was grown in this 

 country or not, whereas all the inferior material which is used 

 for temporary work is known to be home-grown timber, and it 



