A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 709 



producers of wood substitutes and impose a hardship on the consumer. 

 The replacement of wood that is damaged by fungi after it is put in 

 service entails labor and other incidental costs that total much more 

 than the price of the wood used for the replacement. Costs of 

 replacement material cannot be exactly determined, because the 

 losses occur at different stages between felling in the woods and use 

 in buildings, fence lines, etc. Making rough allowances for this fact, 

 as well as for the labor costs of making replacements, it appears that 

 on the basis of the production and prices of the years 1925-29 annual 

 costs of replacements because of decay averaged more than a quarter 

 of a billion dollars, and were thus more than half as great as the 

 annual fire losses reported by the Board of Underwriters for the same 

 period. Furthermore, particularly in the case of house construction, 

 the uncertainty element due to sporadic and spectacular cases of 

 destruction by dry rot causes builders to turn to the use of wood 

 substitutes to an extent greater than the average damage would 

 warrant, with unnecessary losses in economy and often in utility. 

 Decay in forest products, therefore, causes immediate loss to industry 

 and to the public, as w~ell as ultimate loss to the country from the 

 resultant overcutting of the forest and depletion of an important 

 natural resource. 



In comparing the losses due to fungous deterioration of forest 

 products with the losses due to diseases of the living forest, it is 

 probable that the products losses are less serious as a cause of depletion 

 of timber resources. When, however, the immediate financial effect 

 is considered, it appears that the damage to forest products exceeds 

 forest diseases in importance. This is due to two factors: The wood 

 in the form of forest products is worth several times as much as the 

 stumpage of the timber from which it came; and the heavy costs in 

 other items incidental to replacements further raise the total damage 

 figure. 



PREVENTION OF DECAY 



A large wood-preservation industry has arisen within the last 40 

 years, and particularly by its accomplishments in tie preservation it 

 has made a notable contribution to the conservation of timber 

 resources. There is still need for improvement in methods of preser- 

 vation and for its extension to a larger proportion of the material used. 

 Too little progress has been made in the preservation of wood that is 

 to be painted or stained, or used in dwellings. In most parts of the 

 country it is difficult or even impossible for the small consumer to 

 get treated lumber. Current treating methods are expensive, and some 

 of them are suspected of making the treated wood dangerous to the 

 users. Particularly in the South and on the Pacific coast, the destruc- 

 tive dry-rot fungi establish themselves in new buildings and cause 

 extensive damage which, in some cases, proves very difficult to stop 

 unless treated wood is available for critical parts of the structure. 



There is also room for material improvement in other practices as 

 well as in wood preservation. Prompt utilization or the seasoning of 

 green material, subsequent protection from the moisture that decay 

 fungi must have in order to attack the wood, and sanitation in lumber 

 yards are practices which help to prevent decay, but they are often 

 ignored and in many cases it is impracticable to follow them. Re- 

 search needs to be extended both in the direction of field trials for the 



