362 B. E. FERNOW 



Orleans, where the cypress association controls the market. 

 In the south we must seek the supplies of building material 

 for the next century, at least the first half, for even here sup- 

 plies are not inexhaustible and the naval store industry, fol- 

 lowed usually by forest fires, assists in decimating them. From 

 the west we have so far not drawn much. The distance for- 

 bids shipment by rail of the bulky material except for special 

 purposes. But when the Panama canal shall have estab- 

 lished a short water connection the magnificent giants of red- 

 wood — if any shall be left by that time — of the soft sugar pine 

 and the hard yellow pine, and, best of all construction timbers, 

 the Douglas spruce, in the trade called yellow or red fir, will 

 be welcome substitutes for the kinds which we shall then find 

 becoming scarce on the eastern side of the continent. We 

 shall then also appreciate some kinds which now we despise, 

 the magnificent hemlock of the Pacific coast and the giant 

 larch of the interior basin, which now are mostly only de- 

 stroyed by forest fires. Before another generation shall have 

 passed, however, we shall have learned that we can and must 

 get along with less lumber, build of iron and stone those 

 structures which are better built of those materials, and re- 

 serve wood for those uses for which it is indispensable, namely, 

 where non conductivity of heat and electricity are essential. 



