46 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ests without mills in the West." In New England and 

 New York where the forests have been largely worked 

 out, there is the heaviest concentration of mills. In Alas- 

 ka, where there is enough spruce and hemlock to supply 

 present American news-print requirements indefinitely, 

 there is only one mill. The industry has remained sta- 

 tionary in the East while the lumber industry has moved 

 West. 



"In Minnesota, for instance, where domestic spruce 

 forms 95 per cent of the consumption, pulp wood cost 

 $10.40 per ton less than in New York. If New York pulp 

 mills could have bought their spruce from native forests 

 at a saving of $10 a cord the savings on their imports 

 alone would have been $5,000,000 during the year 1920." 



Expensive Eastern mills can not be moved West nor 

 can the great forests of Alaska and the Pacific slope be 

 set down in New England and New York. Nor can the 

 United States count upon reducing the amount of pulp 

 wood necessary to meet present requirements. Further, 

 Canada can not be depended upon indefinitely as a source 



of supply, for Canadian forests are no more limitless 

 than those of the United States. The remedy is two- 

 fold : locate more mills on the Pacific slope and reforest 

 the East. 



"Reforestation will take not only skill, energy and 

 money," say the foresters, "but most serious of all, many 

 years must elapse before the East can be put on a 

 thoroughly self-supporting basis. Yet there is no choice 

 left to us. The work must be undertaken. We must 

 have pulp and for every year of delay we must pay 

 increasingly heavy penalties for neglecting to restore the 

 forests as fast as the wood is consumed." 



As the result of unregulated lumbering, it is pointed 

 out, followed by fire, more than 60,000,000 acres of po- 

 tential forest lands, most accessible to Eastern and Lake 

 State mills, are now producing nothing or supporting a 

 growth of little use except for firewood. If they were 

 producing only a third of a cord of pulp wood an acre, 

 every year, the total yield would be 20,000,000 cords or 

 approximately twice the amount needed to supply the 

 entire American consumption at the present time. 



A PROFITABLE CROP 



T UMBERING was early a leading enterprise in New 

 '-' England, and up to 1840 white pine made up almost 

 the entire softwood cut. By 1870 the original white 

 pine was practically all removed, and by 1880 the second- 

 growth pine forests were yielding an annual cut of 200 

 to 300 million board feet. With the extensive use of 

 low grade pine for boxes and matches, this has increased 

 to 600 million feet. The New England States produced 

 more than one- 

 f our th (28.7 

 per cent) of 

 the total out- 

 put of white 

 pine lumber cut 

 in the United 

 States in 1918. 

 Maine is today 

 producingmore 

 white pine lum- 

 ber than Idaho, 

 the great white 

 pine State of 

 the northwest. 

 Not so many 

 years ago, 

 P ennsylvania, 

 Michigan, and 

 W i scon s in 

 were producing 



enormous quantities of pine. In 1918 these three States 

 combined, cut only approximately one-third as much white 

 pine as was cut in the New England States. White pine 

 has come back in the New England States and it will come 

 back elsewhere. The second-growth stands of white 



riwtngrafh i>y A. B. Brooks. 



THE RESULT OF 



pine will do much to solve our timber supply problem. 

 Our idle lands must be restored to timber production, 

 and no other tree is so valuable for this purpose as the 

 white pine. Massachusetts is to be congratulated on 

 establishing a new principle in State forest conservation. 

 The recent law which provided for the planting of white 

 pine on 100,000 acres of idle lands in this State, as 

 rapidly as such lands can be acquired, means that such 



lands will soon 

 be ret urning 

 revenue to the 

 State far above 

 their cost. 



White pine 

 not only adds 

 the crowning 

 'touch to the 

 average New 

 England land- 

 scape, but it is 

 also a crop that 

 yields larger 

 profits than any 

 other crop that 

 can be grown 

 on a large pro- 

 portion of the 

 poorer soils of 

 New England 

 and New York. It is a crop that furnishes winter work on 

 the farm, and supplies the material required in operating 

 numerous factories. Its rapid growth on lands that 

 would otherwise be waste has paid oflf mortgages, im- 

 proved farms, and given the children college educations. 



NEGLECTING" A PASTURE FIELD 



