1905 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



515 



growth. Hitherto the timber business 

 in the United States has been more or 

 less a shifting and ephemeral one. 

 Towns have sprung up like mush- 

 rooms, to disappear with the vanish- 

 ing forest. Whole towns in New Eng- 

 land have dwindled and even died out 

 since the cutting of the original white 

 pine, and others now dependent on the 

 spruce forests must follow the same 

 course in fifteen or twenty years, un- 

 less something is done to recuperate 



that New Hampshire imported last 

 year from Canada 37 per cent of all 

 the spruce logs used in the manufac- 

 ture of paper pulp. 



4. The movement is widely ap- 

 proved and urged upon Congress. The 

 propositions for national forest reser- 

 vations in the White Mountains and 

 in the southern Appalachian Moun- 

 tains have met thrs far no serious op- 

 position. They are universally com- 

 mended. The press of the country has 



Making a road for cutting at the commercial timber line in the White Mountains, 3,5oo feet 

 high expensive, and not much profit to the operator, but most destructive to the forest. 



the timber industries, to renew the 

 sources of supply, and thus maintain 

 the population upon the soil. Contrast 

 our situation with the happy and pros- 

 perous life in the Black Forest region 

 in Germany, where, under government 

 regulation of felling and planting, no 

 danger from exhaustion arises. We 

 may well fear German competition in 

 manufacture until we have placed our 

 supplies of raw material upon an 

 equally sound basis. It is significant 



given hearty support, and trade associ- 

 ations in all the lines affected, includ- 

 ing the American Paper and Pulp 

 Association, the National Wholesale 

 Lumber Dealers' Association, the Na- 

 tional Board of Trade, the American 

 Forest Congress, and many local 

 bodies have urged these reservations 

 upon Congress. Both measures have 

 been agitated now for some time. Tt 

 seems as if the time for congressional 

 action has arrived. Let the sons and 



