134 FORESTS AND MANKIND 



by waterpower and later, when steam had become a source of 

 energy, this new power was adopted by the sawmills with 

 great improvement to their output. 



Even in those days many of the rapidly expanding centers 

 of civilization went through local timber famines that fore- 

 casted in a small way the great drama of forest exhaustion that 

 we are witnessing on a national scale today. This process of 

 progressive timber exhaustion usually presented the same as- 

 pects. A sawmill, when first set up in a community, made use 

 only of the best and most accessible timber and only one or 

 two favorite species were thought worthy to be cut. Then, 

 when the countryside had been combed over once, it became 

 necessary for the mill operator to cover the ground again and 

 select this time less perfect individuals and take less-favored 

 species. Early forms of transportation imposed very definite 

 and restricted limits to the distance it was profitable to bring 

 logs to a mill. Consequently, unless a community happened 

 to be on a seaport or navigable stream, it began to suffer from 

 a scarcity of wood as soon as its surrounding forest had been 

 cleared for a distance of twenty miles or less. In some regions, 

 local shortages of timber caused the early inhabitants to pass 

 measures for timber regeneration and protection. Very few of 

 these ever bore fruit. 



All this time, of course, there was enough timber throughout 

 the country to satisfy everyone's needs more than enough 

 but until the development of railroads only the forests along 

 the river banks were of a practical value for distant transporta- 

 tion. So it was along the streams that the first large sawmills 

 came into being, when the days of timber cutting began on 

 more than a local scale. For with the expansion of towns into 



