entail? Not enough provision to meet the situation fully, but 

 still since it is all we have to place between our people and 

 a corner in lumber for a full generation a provision that is 

 worth protecting with the most jealous care. 



Our national insurance policy against extortion and want 

 in lumber is the national forests. They contain about six 

 hundred billion feet of lumber enough to supply the needs 

 of the country for only about thirteen years. Theoretically 

 they produce each year about six thousand million feet in 

 new growth. The government reports an annual cut of only 

 five hundred million feet. Why not utilize the whole of the 

 new growth"? 



Just so far as it can be done without useless sacrifice of 

 our one refuge against the timber monopolists and the tim- 

 ber famine, the yearly increase or the national forests is be- 

 ing cut and used now; but there are certain reasons why it 

 cannot all be used at present, and could not all be used at 

 present, even if these public forests were in private hands. 

 These reasons are: 



There Are Two Good Reasons. 



First, because not less than three-fourths of the old tim- 

 ber and new growth lies so far back in the mountains, out 

 of the reach of transportation, that it is unusable for the 

 present. When the government at last reached the point of 

 creating the national forests it was obliged to take what was 

 left, for the best and most accessible of the timberlands had 

 already been taken up and had passed into private hands. 

 We have just seen how few and how large are the private 

 hands into which it has gone. 



Second, between what government timber is accessible and 

 the great lumber markets stands a very much larger quan- 

 tity of timber in private ownership. This private timber is 

 not only nearer and more accessible but better in quality, and 

 therefore worth more to cut. Much of it lies close to rail- 

 roads and sawmills already built, so that it can be moved 

 and sawed more cheaply than the national forest timber, for 

 the cutting of much of which new railroads and new saw- 

 mills would have to be built. Now there are already more 

 mills in the United States than are needed to supply the 



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