ss 



The mountainous regions, it appears, do not receive the greatest amount of 

 precipitation. 



Tin* average downfall of the Southern States, bordering on the Atlantic and 

 tlii' Gulf of Mexico, exceeds the mean of the whole United States, being no less 

 than fifty-one inches, while on the Pacific coast it ranges from fifty to fifty-six 

 inches. 



INCREASED DEMAND FOR LUMBER. 



With increasing population and the development of new industries come 

 new drains upon the forests from the many arts for which wood is the material. 

 The vast extension of railroads, of manufactures and the mechanical arts, of military 

 armaments, and especially of the commercial fleets and navies of Christendom, 

 within the present century have incredibly augmented the demand for wood, and 

 but for improvements in metallurgy and the working of iron, which have facili- 

 tated the substitution of that metal for wood, the last twenty-five years would have 

 almost stripped Europe of her last remaining tree fit for these uses. 



Let us take the supply of timber for railroad ties. According to Clave', 

 France had in 1862, 9,000 kilometres of railway in operation, 7,000 in construc- 

 tion, half of which is built with a double track. Adding turn-outs and 

 extra tracks at stations, the number of ties required for a single track is stated 

 at 1,200 to the kilometre, or, as Clave computes, for the entire net- work of 

 France, 58,000,000. This number is too large for 16,000 + 8,000 for the double track 

 half way = 24,000, and 24,000x1,200-28,800,000. Gandy states in 1863, that 

 2,000,000 trees had been felled to furnish the ties for the French railroads, and 

 as the ties must be occassionally renewed, and new railways have been con- 

 structed since 1863, we may probably double this number. 



The United States had in operation on the first of January, 1872, 61,000 

 miles, or about 97,000 kilometres of railroad. Allowing the same proportion as 

 in France, the United States railraods required 116,400,000 ties. The number of 

 ties annually required for these railways was estimated at 30,000,000. The 

 annual expenditure for lumber, buildings, repairs and cars was estimated at 

 ^o8,000,000, and the locomotive fuel, at the rate of 19,000 cords of wood per day, 

 at $50,000,000. 



The walnut trees cut in Italy and France to furnish gunstocks to the 

 American Army, during the late civil war, would alone have formed a consider- 

 able forest. 



The consumption of wood for lucifer matches is enormous, and thousands of 

 acres in extents are purchased and felled, solely to supply timber for this pur- 

 pose. The United States Government tax, at one cent per hundred, produced 

 $2,000,000 per year, which shows a manufacture of 20,000,000,000 matches. 

 Allowing nothing for waste, there are about fifty matches to the cubic inch of 

 wood or 86,400 to the cubic foot, making in all upwards of 230,000 cubic feet, 

 and as only straight grained wood, free from knots, can be used for this purpose, 

 not less than three or four thousand well-grown pines are required. 



Add to all this the supply of wood for telegraph poles, wooden pavements, 

 wooden wall tapestry paper, shoe-pegs, wooden nails, and wood-pulp and other 

 recent applications which ingenuity has devised, and we have an amount of con- 

 sumption for entirely new purposes, which is really appalling. Wooden field and 

 garden fences are very generally used in America, and some have estimated the 

 consumption of wood for this purpose as not less than that for architectural 

 uses. 



