Forest Area and Standing Timber. 465 



& 



for such an estimate too scanty, but standards of 

 what is considered merchantable change continuously 

 and vitiate the value of such estimates. The writer's 

 own estimate, made some years ago, of 2,500 billion 

 feet, which by others has been treated as authorit- 

 ative and forming a basis for predicting the time of a 

 timber famine, and which was lately sustained by an 

 extensive official inquiry, must nevertheless be con- 

 sidered only as a reasonable guess, ventured for the 

 purpose of accentuating the need of more conser- 

 vative treatment of these exhaustible supplies, in 

 comparsion with the consumption which represents 

 around 45 billion feet B.M., and altogether 23 bil- 

 lion cubic feet of forest-grown material, the ulti- 

 mate value of all forest products reaching the stupen- 

 dous sum of around 1,250 million dollars. And, as in 

 other countries, this lavish consumption of forest 

 growth, from five to fifteen times that of Europeans, 

 has shown in the past a per capita increase of 30 per 

 cent, for every decade. 



The bulk of the standing timber is to be found along 

 the Pacific Coast, in the Sierra, and in the Southern 

 States with their extensive pineries; the Northern 

 and Eastern sections are within measurable time of 

 the end of their virgin supplies of saw timber. The 

 practice of culling the most valuable species has 

 changed the composition in the regeneration, making 

 it inferior, and large areas have been rendered worth- 

 less by fires. 



The loss by fire, the bane of American forests, as 

 far as loss in material is concerned probably does not 

 exceed 2 or 3 per cent, of the consumption, and may be 



