The Forest Industries 73 



Now to what extent is it possible to substitute 

 other materials where at present we use soft woods ? 

 To a very limited extent it will be feasible to sub- 

 stitute hard-wood lumber, as, for instance, poplar for 

 pine in the making of boxes and packages. This 

 is already being done to a considerable extent. 

 But then that means only deferring the evil day of 

 lumber famine a few decades, for it will make the 

 hard-wood forests disappear the quicker. For the 

 erection of buildings, sidewalks, bridges, and similar 

 structures, the use of stone, brick, and iron of 

 course suggests itself. Stone and brick are the al- 

 most exclusive building materials of Europe, and in 

 our larger cities these materials, together with the 

 iron used in large edifices, are rapidly driving out 

 the typical American " frame " houses. Not un- 

 likely the latter will have practically disappeared 

 from the United States in the course of fifty years. 

 If so, it is by no means a thing to be desired. 

 Stone and brick houses are no doubt more lasting 

 and substantial than wooden ones, but also far more 

 expensive. If the average American family of 

 small means in the future will not be able to obtain 

 the cheap and commodious frame dwelling in which 

 it lives to-day, that will mean a long downward 

 step in our standard of life towards the European 

 level. It will mean the spread of the tenement 

 house from a few large cities to the small towns, the 

 disappearance of the one-family cottage, with its 

 lawn and garden-patch, from the villages. It will 

 mean the loss of one of those advantages by which 



