PART VI. A STUDY OF OUR FORESTS. 



FROM ABUNDANCE TO NEED. 



When the white man first made his home in America, thick forests 

 hundreds and hundreds of square miles in extent covered the eastern 

 part of the United States, the Eocky Mountains, and the Pacific 

 coast region. Evergreens — pines, hemlocks, cedars, holly, and 

 spruce — grew near the coast in abundance, while farther inland were 

 the most magnificent hardwood forests in the world. At first the 

 forests were a hindrance to progress, because the trees had to be 

 cut down before houses could be built, land cultivated, or roads laid 

 out. Therefore, the early settlers took no care of the trees whatever, 

 and either burned them or caused them to decay. 



Conditions have changed slowly. The country has filled with 

 people, towns have sprung up, and railroads have been built. As 

 population has increased, the vast forests of former times have 

 gradually disappeared, and large wooded areas remain only in in- 

 accessible regions. It is becoming more and more difficult to procure 

 lumber for building, and the need of forests to regulate the flow of 

 water and to prevent floods is constantly more apparent. The change 

 from abundance to need has come so gradually that few persons, even 

 those living where the forests formerly were, have realized until 

 within the past few years how fast the forests are going. 



The wholesale destruction without replanting has come mostly 

 from ignorance and greed. Manj^ large lumber companies cause 

 wholesale and reckless destruction by cutting small trees that should 

 stand, and by breaking down young trees. Forest fires, caused by 

 carelessness, sweep away not only vast numbers of trees, but destroy 

 likewise houses and crops and even human lives. It is estimated that 

 the loss by fire is as great as the entire amount cut for use in the 

 entire United States ; about 50,000,000 acres of woodland are burned 

 over yearly. Notwithstanding the fact that building materials of 

 all kinds are constantly growing scarcer and more costly, more than 

 enough timber to supply our needs is burned every year. The next 

 great loss to the forests is from insects that bore into the trees and 

 destroy them. 



Notwithstanding the destruction that has been going on at a 

 rapid rate, we still have large areas of the most valuable forests in 

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