412 



Canadian Forestry Magasine^ August-Scpteuiber, iq20. 



Idle forest land in Canada which rapidly denegerated to dangerous sand dunes, and was later planteii 



with pine and spruce. 



than five per cent. of the 

 .virgin forests of Xew England and but 

 twelve per cent, of her original stand of 

 timber are left. Xew York, the leading 

 state in lumber production in 1850, now 

 manufactures only thirty board feet per 

 capita yearly, or not more than a tenth 

 of the requirements of her own popula- 

 tion and industries. 



The original pine forests of the Lake 

 States, estimated at 350 billion feet, are 

 now reduced to less than eight billion. 

 In 1892 the sawmills in the region 

 bordering the Great Lakes cut nine bil- 

 lion board feet of lumber and largely 

 supplied the softwood markets of the 

 Prairie and Central States and eastward 

 to New England. To-day their yearly 

 cut is a single billion. These four dense- 

 ly populated regions, stretching from the 

 Atlantic to the Prairies, which formerly 

 were lumber exporters and still contain 

 enormous areas of forest land, are now 

 partly or largely dependent upon timber 

 grown and manufactured elsewhere and 

 are becoming increasinglv dependent up- 

 on timber whicli must be shipped the 

 width of the continent. 



The bulk of the building and struc- 

 tural timbers used in the eastern and 

 central states during the last twenty 

 years was grown in the pine forests of 

 the south. But the cut of southern pine 

 is now falling off and within another de- 

 cade promises to exceed by little, if at all, 

 the requirements of the southern states 



themselves. The shifting of the hard- 

 wood industries has followed much the 

 same course. The principal reserve of 

 hardwoods is in the Southern Mississippi 

 \ 'alley, and even here it is doubtful if 

 the cut of hardwood lumber can be ma- 

 terially increased for anv great length 

 of time. The scarcity of high grade 

 oak, poplar, ash, hickory, walnut and 

 other standard hardwoods is now con- 

 fronting many industries with a difficult 

 situation. 



Must he Close at Hand 



One-half of the timber remaining in 

 the Continental L'nited States is in three 

 States bordering the Pacific Ocean. 

 Sixty-one per cent, of it lies west of the 

 Great Plains. Since 1894 western timber 

 has been filling gaps in the eastern and 

 middle western markets. Within the 

 past year it has assumed a dominating 

 place in the principal markets of the 

 States and has largely replaced southern 

 pine at many consuming points in the 

 Central States. It is estimated that 

 within the next decade the shortage of 

 nearer timber will compel the eastern 

 and central states to increase their an- 

 nual consumption of western lumber by 

 eleven and one-half billion board feet. 



The true index of timber depletion is 

 not the quantity that is left but its avail- 

 ability. This is shown partly in the cost 

 of transporting the average thousand 

 feet of lumber from the saw mill to the 



