CHAPTER FIVE 

 THE FOREST 



One day in the 185CTs a man from the country went with 

 his wife to the city to buy some furniture. The furniture 

 dealer showing them his stock said, "This is solid walnut and 

 that is solid walnut and this is solid walnut/' 1 But the gentleman 

 did not seem to be very much impressed by it. The furniture 

 man was somewhat surprised, but he was completely over 

 whelmed when the visitor said, "Look here, young man, I come 

 from a country where folks make fence rails out of walnut." 1 



From the beginning of American history the timber in Amer' 

 ican forests was thought of as an obstruction to the farmer who 

 wanted to sow the land in crops. It was fortunate if the best 

 timber was used for fence rails. In Indiana, for instance, great 

 logs of virgin black walnut were piled in heaps and burned. 

 To most people at that time it would have been incredible that 

 those logs would be worth $20 apiece three generations later. 



Today no one makes fence rails out of black walnut. Indeed, 

 there is hardly enough of it left to make furniture. The great 

 virgin forests which once covered 820,000,000 acres, nearly 

 half our total land area, have dwindled to 495,000,000 acres. 

 In addition, there are 83,000,000 acres of low grade forest, 

 much of it of totally unproductive and 135,000,000 acres of 

 denuded forest land worthless for agriculture and virtually 

 desert land so far as any economic value goes. 2 



The cutting down of the forests followed much the same 



1 Report of National Conservation Commission of 1909, p. 196. 



2 A National Plan of American Forestry, p. 1485. 



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