FOREST CONDITIONS. 365 



movement has by no means been fully and gener- 

 ally realized, as we shall see in the next chapter; 

 the difficulty of changing existing usages, lines of 

 procedure, and modes of thought require unusual 

 effort and require time. 



For the future, it is in the end of much more 

 importance to know the acreage available for 

 timber growing and the capacity of production of 

 that acreage than the actually available supplies. 

 These, no matter how large, every intelligent man 

 will admit, must sooner or later be exhausted, and 

 we must rely upon the reproduction. The present 

 acreage must, to be sure, change until all agricul- 

 turally available lands have been turned into farms 

 and all lands unfit for farming have been turned 

 back into forest growth. 



But if we accept as mere indications of possibili- 

 ties the present acreage of timber land on the At- 

 lantic side as 400,000,000 acres, and assume that it 

 can be made to produce at the same rate as the 

 German forests under good management, it would 

 be able to supply continuously the present con- 

 sumption of 25,000,000,000 cubic feet. 



The most important, most immediately needful 

 change in thought and practice, without which 

 forestry, the provision for future supplies, cannot 

 be practically applied, is that in regard to forest 

 fires. Forest fires are the bane of the forests of the 

 United States the most destructive agency ; for 

 while, with the exception of the Western forests, 



