1906 FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 6 



standing on some 500,000,000 acres, husband our resources, and make one 



At the present rate of sawing this will board do where we now use two. Un- 



be cut in forty years. This does not doubtedly, we are approaching the 



mean that forty years hence there will maximum of our annual consumption 



be no more timber to saw, but it does of forest products, and hereafter, the 



mean that there must come a great re- great increase will be in value instead 



adjustment to new conditions by both of quantity. It is entirely possible for 



the manufacturer and the user of for- us to use less wood and we shall do so 



est products. So far we have been when we have to. We are consuming 



drawing on the older trees in our for- some 500 board feet of lumber, per 



ests, or cutting virgin stands anywhere capita, annually, where Europe uses 



from 100 to 500 years old. In other but 60; and if we were forced to im- 



words, we have been paying dividends port 80 per cent of our wood supply 



out of our capital stock, and no good as does France, or practically all, as 



business man will do that. In the near does England, we should quickly learn 



future our wood must be supplied by how to economize. We are not likely 



growth and reproduction, and the now to reach this extreme condition, but we 



commonly despised "second growth" may be sure that prices will advance 



will come to be our source of supply. until consumption is finally forced 



Going back to our estimated forest down to somewhere near the annual 



area of 500,000,000 acres, let us see accretion of the forests that are left at 



what can be done with it. Of this that time. 



500,000,000 acres, the government has I do not decry high prices, much as 



nearly 100,000,000 acres in national the country has benefited by low prices 



forest reserves, but a considerable por- for lumber. I recognize the fact that 



tion of this area lacks forests of any in general the lumbermen have oper- 



value for lumber. Four-fifths of our ated as economically as they could un- 



forest area is in private hands and der prevailing conditions, and while it 



quite likely will remain so for at least is fashionable to condemn them for de- 



a long time to come. The highly man- stroying the forests, they have done so 



aged forests of Germany grow, on an only because of economic demand, and 



average, about 50 cubic feet of wood their critics would have behaved no 



per acre annually. Were our forests better under the same circumstances, 



in the condition of the German forests, But the forests will not be handled ra- 



their extent is barely sufficient to fur- tionally until they become valuable, 



nish by annual growth the amount of until there is money in handling them 



wood we now use. As a matter of that way ; and so I say that from the 



fact, the annual growth of our forests standpoint of the forester, high prices 



as a whole, under present conditions for lumber are a good thing, because 



of abuse, is probably not more than they make it profitable to utilize the 



one-fifth that of the German forests. forests rationally and economically. 



These, then, are the conditions as One of the prominent Pacific Coast 

 nearly as can be estimated to-day. It lumbermen recently advised his asso- 

 does not require any special gift of dates to "slab lightly, reduce your saw 

 prophecy to outline what will follow, kerf, and keep your eye on the burn- 

 We will undoubtedly go on in the same er." Carrying this a little further, it 

 old wasteful, extravagant way, for will not be long until the slabs are re- 

 some years yet, until there comes a sawed and the burner abolished en- 

 stern realization that things must tirelv. as the white pine manufacturers 

 change. And when I say a "stern real- are new doing. 



izatioi " 1 mean one which is caused In view of these conditions, there is 



by a greater scarcity of stumpage and nothing really surprising in the tact 



a much higher price for lumber than that in the last twelve years the price 



now exists. Then we shall begin to of rough white pine uppers on the 



