FOREST PLANTING. IOI 



St. Louis, a report of which we find in the Missouri Democrat, the 

 following striking paper was read, having been prepared by R. S. 

 Elliott, Esq., the well known Industrial Agent of the Kansas Pacific 

 Railroad Company: 



The Committee on Forest Culture beg leave to report as follows : 



The forests of the continent are rapidly passing away. Large dis- 

 tricts in the Atlantic States are already stripped of their most valuable 

 timber. In less than twenty-five years the accessible forests in the 

 region of the great lakes, on the upper waters of the Mississippi, and 

 in the British possessions adjacent, will be exhausted. The industrial 

 progress of the Southern States is consuming trees both deciduous 

 and evergreen at an accelerating rate. In the Rocky Mountain 

 regions (where the hard woods are unknown) the pines, spruces and 

 cedars are disappearing before the farmer, the miner, the architect 

 and the railroad builder. On the Pacific coast, the immense home 

 demand, ever increasing, together with the exportations to England, 

 France, Australia, China, Japan, South America, Mexico and the 

 Pacific Islands foretell the exhaustion of the California timber trees 

 in twenty years ; and those available in Oregon and regions north- 

 ward within a comparatively brief period. 



The demand for the product of the forest constantly increases. 

 The supply constantly, and in a growing ratio, diminishes, and prices 

 constantly augment. The causes now in operation, and daily gaining 

 strength, can have but one effect, that of exhausting all the available 

 sources of supply within the lives of persons now in existence. 



This appalling prospect, the view of which becomes more vivid the 

 more it is studied, should arouse the farmers, land-owners and legis- 

 lators. It is vital to the future welfare of our people that the repro- 

 duction of the forests should at once begin, not on a small scale or in 

 few localities, but in large measures and co-extensive with our settle- 

 ments. A broad statesmanship, in our national and State Legislature, 

 should at once take up the subject, and deal with it year by year until 

 the great work shall be adequately begun. 



