96 FOREST PLANTING. 



it must occur to every one ; and yet there is danger tliat in many 

 places, from false motives of immediate economy, no provision will 

 be made for the wants of future generations. It is not easy to estimate 

 the value of the wood used in house-building. The thousands of tons 

 of timber, boards, clapboards and shingles, used in such improvements, 

 are not put on record. As to ship-building, we have some data. The 

 returns from the various towns in the State, made in 1837, show that 

 the average annual value of ships built in the five preceding years was 

 $1,370,649. * * * The effect of the wasteful destruction of the for- 

 est trees is already visible. A very large proportion of the materials of 

 ship-building, house-building, and manufactures, are now brought from 

 the other States. Every year we are more dependant on Maine and 

 New York, and some of the Southern States, not only for ship-timber 

 and lumber for house-building, but for materials for tanning and 

 dyeing, carriage-building, basket-making, last-making, furniture, 

 agricultural implements, barrel-staves, and wooden-ware of all descrip- 

 tions. Even these foreign resources are fast failing us. Within the 

 last quarter of a century the forests of Maine and New York, from 

 which we draw our largest supplies, have disappeared more rapidly 

 than those of Massachusetts ever did. In a quarter of a century more, 

 at this rate, the supp'y will be entirely cut off." 



The warning embodied in these words was suffered to 

 pass unheeded. The quarter of a century has passed and 

 the prediction has been more than fulfilled. The rate of 

 demand on which it was based has increased to a degree 

 which would then have seemed incredible; and while we 

 have still to regret the want of any record by which an 

 estimate can be formed of the amount of timber annually 

 drawn from the forests, or of the probable duration of the 

 present sources of supply, yet a consideration of the single 

 item of the timber required for railroad construction, 

 (which at the time the above was written was not of suffi- 

 cient importance to demand notice), and give a moment's 



