204 ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, NOVEMBER 4, 1874. 



years ago thought to contain pines enough to comply with the law 

 of supply and demand for the present, and to furnish timber for 

 a future, however distant. That impression the march of events 

 has thoroughly dispelled. The forests of the Delaware Valley 

 have yielded no pine for years, and the resources of the Alleghany 

 and Monongahela have been drawn so largely to supply the markets 

 of the East, that in a comparatively short time their pine forests 

 will be exhausted. ... A significant and alarming fact is, that the 

 coal regions, once famous pine-producing counties, cannot now supply 

 enough to furnish timber for props for the mines. From supplying 

 all home demands and exporting large quantities of pine, these 

 counties have become importers, paying more per thousand for what 

 they purchase than they obtained when selling the same product. 

 . . . Taking a liberal estimate, less than four years will exhaust the 

 pine supply of the Susquehanna Valley, and the now comparatively 

 neglected hemlock spruce (Abies Canadensis) will become the staple 

 in the lumber trade of that section, as it has been for years in the 

 Delaware region." 



" In a few years the great lumber marts of the East must necessarily 

 depend entirely on the great forests of the West, and the rapidly- 

 decreasing pinewoods of the South. Are these inexhaustible 1 Is 

 not the fact that the once mighty pine-producing State of Pennsyl- 

 vania is so nearly bereft of this great source of wealth, that the date 

 of its exhaustion is easy of computation 1 There is ample food for 

 reflection on the importance of timber culture in this country con- 

 tained in these facts." — Montreal Gazette. 



Let us turn to the forestal condition of the southern provinces of 

 France, the climate of which, as compared with Britain or the 

 northern states of America, is extremely mild. Little snow falls 

 except on the mountain ranges ; the frosts are light, and the sum- 

 mers are long. The fig and vine flourish everywhere, the olive up to 

 43° N. Lat., and on the south coast the orange, lemon, and date-palm 

 grow freely. The forest trees are of a southern type, such as the 

 umbrella pine; various evergreen oaks and many broad-leaved trees 

 of persistent foliage characterise the landscape. In the seventeenth 

 century it was found that there was an increase of prosperity and of 

 population in Lower Provence, while there was an alarming decrease 

 in the wealth and population of Upper Provence. Much land had 

 been rendered arable by clearing of the forest, but it was found that 

 the augmented violence of the mountain torrents (from the Alps) 

 had buried in sand and gravel more land than had been reclaimed 



