20 FOREST VALUATION 



seven per cent in Prussia and by over one hundred per cent for all 

 Germany. 



Generally the demand is for lumber or larger sizes, and not 

 merely cordwood or quickly grown small stuff. The demand also 

 is more for conifers than for hardwoods ; in the United States the 

 consumption of conifers to hardwoods being about three to one. 



Larger sizes require longer time to grow so that a forester of 

 central Europe does not expect to cut his timber before it is eighty 

 years old, the average rotations for conifers staying close to one 

 hundred years. 



The forests of the world are limited, the really useful ones 

 amount to about one acre for each human being. In the United 

 States we now have about five acres of woods per head of popula- 

 tion. The population increases and the forests decrease. Even 

 under present conditions the people of the United States are depend- 

 ent for the future on the growth of five acres per head. This growth 

 at present is practically nothing. Even if cared for, it would prob- 

 ably just suffice for the needs of the population as it is at present. 



This means that the future will demand reduction in consump- 

 tion regardless of all human efforts. With this reduction will come 

 further advance in price. In many localities this reduction has al- 

 ready come, the supply of raw material for hundreds of mills is 

 gone and from the state of Michigan alone industries with over 

 sixty million dollars investment have disappeared in the past twenty 

 years. The whole Lake Region, New York, Pennsylvania, parts of 

 the South and parts of Canada share in this change. In many local- 

 ities over large areas the change has been from industrial prosperity 

 to utter desolation, so that towns have been deserted, railway lines 

 taken up or abandoned. 



The forest crop has its peculiarities. Categorically stated : 



1. The forest takes many years to grow. 



2. It can use sand lands, cold, steep, rocky, even poorly drained 

 lands, and so utilize large areas not useful otherwise. 



3. The forest improves the land, and protects it against ero- 

 sion. 



4. It is a much more certain crop than the field crops. 



5. It is more independent of man, reproduces and grows very 

 well without human effort wherever climate, chiefly moisture, is at 

 all congenial to tree growth. 



6. It requires not merely land but involves large investment 

 in the growing stock. 



