A Decennial Recokd 127 



veloped agricultural regions au assured supply of containers for 

 shipping farm 2)roducts to market has become a serious problem in 

 itself. 



A group of our important manufactm-ers. the makers of wood 

 veneers, handles, vehicles, furniture, and agricultural implements con- 

 sume one and one-half billion feet of timber yearly. It is upon this 

 group, perhaps, that the growing shortage of timber falls most heavily, 

 since they require largely higli grade hardwoods and other timber 

 which the virgin forests of the United States furnished so lavishly, 

 but which it is now becoming more and more difficult to find in suffi- 

 cient quantities. 



All told, Ave demand of our forests about fifty-six billion feet of 

 timber yearly, aside from well over one hundred million cords of small 

 material for fuel and various chemical products. There is nothing 

 comparable to this enormous use of wood in the history of the world. 

 We are preeminently a Avood-using nation. It is wood tliat has devel- 

 oped our farm lands, that has largely built and e([uipped our railroads, 

 and that supports many of our most valuable and distinctive manufac- 

 turing industries. We use from Uvo to four times as much wood — for 

 every member of our population — as the most highly developed coun- 

 tries of Europe. The abundance and general distribution of our native 

 forests have had a tremendous part in the domestic and industrial de- 

 velopment of tlie United States and in its commercial s\ipremacy. We 

 can not face tlie future without a sober and intelligent consideration 

 of that fact. 



Even Avith tlie large substitutions of other materials for lumber, 

 the United States Avith its groAving popidation can not greatly reduce 

 its present total use of Avood Avithout serious injury to its liome build- 

 ing, its agriculture and its manufactures. And Ave must find out hoAv 

 to supply our oAvn needs largely from our OAvn resources, for it is doubt- 

 ful if lumber imports can be greatly increased Avithin reasonable prices. 



So much do Ave ask of oiu* forests. Hoav far can our forests fill 

 this order? 



The original forests of the United States are su])])osed to have 

 covered eight hundred tAventy-tAvo million acres. Over tAvo-thirds of 

 this area has been culled, cut-over, or burnt. There are left today 

 about four hundred sixty-three million acres of forest and cut-OA^er 

 land of all soi-ts. Avhicli contains about tAvo thousand tAvo liundred and 



