4 The Farm Woodlot 



people of the East and the Central States, their own 

 timber supply having long since fallen far below their 

 needs. This cannot continue and the time will come, and 

 that at no very distant future, when there will not be 

 enough forests left in the whole United States to supply 

 the demand. Nor is there much hope of very lasting 

 supplies being available for us in other countries. America 

 is the last great treasure-house of virgin timber in the 

 northern hemisphere. The timber of South America, 

 the only southern continent that has a great excess, is 

 not suitable to our needs. The much talked-of forests 

 of Canada- are wholly inadequate to supply the demands 

 of two nations for any length of time. 



It is imperative that the United States shall grow the 

 timber necessary for its own use, and that a beginning be 

 made at once. Already the time necessary to grow the 

 timber for our own needs is short. We may call our 

 country an agricultural country and a manfacturing coun- 

 try ; but classify it as we may, it must be a timber-pro- 

 ducing country or our other interests will inevitably suffer. 



At present, the care of our forests, reproduction of our 

 old forests and the creation of new ones are neglected, 

 because it is said that such work will not pay. The 

 experience of European countries, most of which have 

 passed through exactly the same stages of development 

 as ours, proves conclusively that it does pay. It goes 

 back directly to the old question of supply and demand. 

 It is necessary only for the demand sufficiently to exceed 

 the supply to make it pay to raise trees on what is now our 

 most valuable agricultural land. This condition, however, 

 will never obtain except in peculiar districts, because, and 



