FOREST WASTE AND FIRE LOSS 



511 



CHICAGO 



vertiser is 

 willing to 

 pay $10,000. 

 Just so long 

 as every addi- 

 tional sheet pays 

 it will remain a 

 permanent part of 

 any p u b 1 i c a ti o n. 

 In Australia and 

 New Zealand the 

 wholesale use of paper 

 is not so lightly regard- 

 ed. At a recent pulp and 

 paper conference in Canada 

 a New Zealand delegate 

 waved aloft a copy of a New 

 York daily paper. "This ])a 

 per contains thirty pages," he 

 shouted. "If I dared to print 

 thirty pages in one day in my 

 paper, I would be sent to jail.' 

 Doubtless this same delegate must 

 have seen one of our hundred and 

 sixty page Sunday editions, and w:- 

 wonder what the effect was. The 

 time is coming, here in this country. 



not be difficult. It is estimated 

 that about three million cords of 

 wood per year are manufactured 

 nto paper for magazines and 

 newspapers. At ten cords per 

 acre this would mean three 

 hundred thousand acres. 

 Supposing that it takes 

 about forty lo fifty years 

 to grow good pulp- 

 wood spruce, and al- 

 owing for possible 



PENNSYLVANIA 



AREA OF FOREST FIRES FOR FIVE YEARS 



JvP^r ^Z%% nnn" "' "'^ ^'"""^ ^""" '" ^^^ P^^' ^^^ 5"=^" burned 

 over 56,488 000 acres, an area greater than that included in the 

 States of Pennsylvania and Ohio. 



loss by fire, wind, blight or failure of seeding, a tract of thirty thou- 

 and square miles planted with forty successive crops of timber, 

 each crop coming to maturity at one year intervals, would under 

 jroper care and management, furnish a perpetual supply of pulp- 

 wood for newsprint. This means an area a little smaller than 

 the state of Ohio, but represents less than one-tenth of the 

 area of our cut-over lands, most of which are now almost 

 entirely unproductive. 



There is no question but that a perpetual supply of 



pulpwood for all needs is a possible and practical 



scheme. It will not, however, come merely for the 



asking. There must be, first, a proper national 



forestry law with adequate provisions for fire 



protection and government reforestation on 



a scale large enough to demonstrate the 



economic soundness of the idea; second, 



every state must adopt thorough-going 



^ p A# YO R K, ^"'''^^''y principles with provisions to 



^ protect growing timber from exorbitant 



taxation; and, finally, with these laws 

 when the economic law of necessity, a law far stronger as a basis, the pulp and paper industry, together with 

 than any enforced by a mere jail penalty, will bring our all other wood using industries, must be made to see 

 own publications to some sort of retrenchment. that in practical reforestation and conservation lies their 



Authorities agree that that time is not far distant, only salvation. To accomplish these three things will 

 Already more than one-third of our pulpwcod comes require the united efforts of every man and woman. We 

 from across the Canadian border, and Canada, profiting should not leave to any group of foresters and legisla- 

 by our mistakes, is now taking steps to forbid the cut- tors the sole initiative in solving such an important 

 ting of timber at a rate more rapid than its growth, economic problem; but, by the continued expression of 

 That means primarily that our annual importation of our thought and conviction, we can urge those groups to 

 Canadian pulpwood has practically reached the maxi- supply our imminent need. This can not be brought 

 mum, and for the other two-thirds at s <= 



least we will have to look after our- 

 selves. 



If we once squarely face the facts, 

 the solution of the problem will 



AMOUNT OF TIMBER DESTROYED YEARLY 



BY FOREST FIRES 

 A five-room frame house could be erected on both 

 sides of a road from New York to Qiicago, at dis- 

 tances of 100 feet apart, with the amount of lumber 

 destroyed every year by the forest fires in the 

 United States. 



FIVE YEARS' FORE.ST FIRE LOSSES BUSINESS LOSES THIS SUM YEARLY BY BANKERS AND REAL ESTATE MEN LOSE 



DESTRUCTION OF LUMBER THIS YEARLY 



This represents the value of timber and property If loss by forest fires is stopped the business in- Profits of $300,000,000 through the sale of lands 



destroyed in the last five years by forest fires, terests concerned in building construction will and loans on houses are lost every year by the 



most of which could have been prevented by make profits of $400,000,000 a year, the material destruction of timber in the forest fires which 



adequate fire protection work. saved put into houses. rage from one end of tlie country to the other. 



