320 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



per, in the breadth of information it 

 displayed, was a surprise to a major- 

 ity of the Conference. Mr. Hill's pa- 

 per follows : 



In some respects the occasion that calls to- 

 gether this assemblage is unprecedented. 

 The dignity and public influence of those 

 present as guests and advisors mark its 

 importance. It is in effect a directors' 

 meeting of the great political and economic 

 corporation known as the United States of 

 America. The stockholders are the 87,000,- 

 co;> peoplo o! this covntrj 'he directors are 

 tho stnte and federal offu ers, whose posi- 

 tion brings them in touch with the operation 

 of the whole country. We should not fail 

 to recognize the high note that has been 

 struck and the influence of the interests 

 involved upon the lives of millions yet to 

 be. * * * 



The two-fold significance of this meeting 

 is found in the comparative novelty of its 

 subject matter and of the method by which 

 it has been approached. The subject is the 

 conservation of our national wealth, and a 

 careful study of our national economic re- 

 sources. 



Two years ago, in an address delivered 

 before the meeting of the Minnesota State 

 Agricultural Society, at St. Paul, I re- 

 viewed the practical consequences and the 

 statistical proof of that national wasteful- 

 ness which competent scientific authority 

 had already set down as distinguishing the 

 American people. From data of the high- 

 est certainty, no one of which has ever 

 since been called in question, I then fore- 

 cast some of the conditions certain to arise 

 within the next half century, when the pop- 

 ulation of this country will have grown to 

 more than 200,000,000. The facts were 

 pointed out not in the spirit of the alarmist, 

 but in order that attention might be directed 

 to the way by which the Nation may escape 

 future disaster. So rapidly do events move 

 in our time, so swiftly do ideas spread and 

 grasp the public mind, that some policy di- 

 rected to the ends then set forth has already 

 become a National care. It is this policy 

 the conservation of national resources, the 

 best means of putting an end to the waste 

 of the sources of wealth which largely 

 forms the subject matter of this Confer- 

 ence. For the first time there is a formal 

 national protest, under seal of the highest 

 authority, against economic waste. * * * 



"Of all the sinful wasters of man's in- 

 heritance on earth," said the late Pro 

 fessor Shaler, "and all are in this regard 

 sinners, the very worst are the people of 

 America." This is not a popular phrase, 

 but a scientific judgement. It is borne 

 out by facts. In the movement of modern 

 times, which has made the world com- 

 mercially a small place and has produced 

 a solidarity of the races such as never 



before existed, we have come to the 

 point where we must to a certain ex- 

 tent regard the natural resources of this 

 planet as a common asset, compare them 

 with demands now made and likely to 

 be made upon them, and study their 

 judicious use. Commerce, wherever un- 

 trammeled, is wiping out boundaries and 

 substituting the world relation of de- 

 mand and supply for smaller systems of 

 local economy. The changes of a single 

 generation have brought the nations of 

 the earth closer together than were the 

 states of this Union at the close of the 

 Civil War. If we fail to consider what 

 we possess of wealth available for the 

 uses of mankind, and to what extent we 

 are wasting a national patrimony that 

 can never be restored, we might be 

 likened to the directors of a company 

 who never examine a balance sheet. 



The sum of resources is simple and 

 fixed. From the sea, the mine, the forest 

 and the soil must be gathered everything 

 than can sustain the life of man. Upon 

 the wealth that these supply must be 

 conditioned forever, as far as we can see, 

 not only his progress but his continued 

 existence on earth. How stands the in 

 ventory of property for our own people? 

 The resources of the sea furnish less 

 than five per cent of the food supply, 

 and that is all. The forests of this coun- 

 try, the product of centuries of growth, 

 are fast disappearing. The best esti- 

 mates reckon our standing merchantable 

 limber at less than 2,000,000,000,000 feet. 

 Our annual cut is about 40,000,000,000,000 

 feet. The lumber cut rose from 18,000,- 

 000,000 feet in 1880 to 34,000,000,000 feet 

 in 1905; that is, it nearly doubled in 25 

 years. We are now using annually 500 

 feet board measure of timber per cap- 

 ita, as against an average of 60 for all 

 Europe. The New England supply is 

 gone. The Northwest furnishes small 

 growths that would have been rejected 

 by the lumberman of 30 years ago. The 

 South has reached its maximum pro- 

 duction and begins to decline. On the 

 Pacific Coast only is there now any 

 considerable body of merchantable 

 standing timber. We are consuming 

 yearly three or four times as much tim- 

 ber as forest growth restores. Our sup- 

 ply of some varieties will be practically 

 exhausted in 10 or 12 years; in the case 

 of others, without reforesting, the present 

 century will see the end. When will we 

 take up in a practical and intelligent way 

 the reforestation of our forests? * * * 



The exhaustion of our coal supply is not 

 in the indefinite future. The startling feat- 

 ure of our coal production is not so much 

 the magnitude of the annual output as its 

 rate of growth. For the decade ending in 

 1905 the total product was 2,832,402,746 tons, 

 which is almost exactly one-half the total 



