run over more than 2,000 miles of wooden trestles and bridges, they carry 

 their passengers and freight in over 1,000,000 wooden cars, and much of 

 the millions of tons of freight is shipped in wooden boxes and barrels, and 

 stored in wooden sheds. Ten million telegraph poles are needed to keep 

 up communication between distant markets. 



The forest furnishes the cooperage to market our vintage, to store 

 our flour and fruit. The forest furnishes the plough handle and harrow 

 frame to cultivate, the threshing machine and windmill to prepare the 

 crops, the cart to bring them to market, the bottoms in which they cross 

 the ocean to foreign marts, and even the tar and pitch needed to keep the 

 cargo safe. While iron ships have largely replaced the wooden bottoms in 

 ocean travel, our coastwise and inland shipping, which requires in the 

 United States a tonnage twice as large as in the transatlantic trade, is car- 

 ried mostly in wooden ships. We are rocked in wooden cradles, play with 

 wooden toys, sit on wooden chairs and benches, eat from wooden tables, 

 use wooden desks, chests, trunks, are entertained by music from wooden 

 instruments, enlightened by information printed on wooden paper with 

 black ink made from wood, and even eat our salads seasoned with vinegar 

 made from wood. 



The uses of wood, multifarious now, are constantly increasing. With 

 the manufacture of wood-pulp and cellulose, an entirely new direction of 

 use has been opened ; originally designed to furnish a cheap substitute for 

 linen paper, its application in many ways is growing daily, and promises 

 for the future the largest drain on our forest res&urces, the manufacture of 

 wood-pulp having increased more than three- fold in the last ten years. 



To give briefly an idea of the extent of our own wood consumption, 

 (including exports), we may say that, if five persons are counted to a 

 family, each family in the United States and in Canada as well, uses on 

 an average about 3,000 cubic feet or about 120,000 pounds of dry wood 

 per year, the annual product of at least GO acres of forest. 



The reasons for this universal and varied application of wood may be 

 found in several directions. Tn the first place, the general occurrence of 

 forest growth and the ease with which wood can be obtained and shaped 

 directly to the purpose in hand made it, naturally, the material of earlier 

 civilizations ; but there are certain qualities in addition which will make its 

 use always desirable, if not necessary. In the combination of strength, 

 stiffness, elasticity, and relatively light weight, it excels all other known 

 materials. Not only is a stick of long leaf pine superior in strength to one 

 of wrought iron of the same weight, but employed as a beam it will bear 

 without bending a load six to eight times as great as an iron bar of the 

 same length and weight. Moreover, the wooden beam will endure greater 

 distortion than the metals without receiving a "set" or permanent injury. 



The ease with which it can be shaped and keeps its shape, the softness 

 and yet unchangeableness, but especially its non-conductivity of heat and 



