TIMBER-EXPORTS GROW. 



Much of the paper on which our newspapers are being .printed is 

 made from Canadian spruce. Box-boards are being shipped in from 

 PentfSy^temia &n4 : Ar^ajisas and California. The state imports much 

 more'lffnfcer thfi il Se'uls-and cuts much more timber than it grows, con- 

 stanjly grows, a.rjdl .cuts less and constantly imports more. 

 ."The fijeigfci frill; On ^mp'or^ted lumber alone is costing Michigan around 

 $2,000;000'a'year, 'a'htf/e'a'ch'y'ear the freight bill is due to increase great- 

 ly as the sources of supply recede with the steady devastation of the 

 forests of the South and West. Meanwhile Michigan continues to sup- 

 port 10,000,000 acres or so of idle lands which a few years ago were 

 producing the most generally useful kinds of timber the world ever 

 had. White pine lumber practically is out of the market. There is 

 not a town of 5,000 in the state which does not import yellow pine 

 from the Gulf states. 



On the face of things, such economic arrangements do not appear 

 very reasonable, but they are easy to account for. If we could get 

 the timber we needed from the neighbors, and at easy prices, why 

 bother with growing timber and why fuss about the situation? 



SUPPLY DECREASES. 



Perhaps that might be an all right way of doing save for one item 

 the neighbor's supply of timber is not holding out. 



Withing the lifetime of many persons now living, the center of the 

 lumber industry has moved from the New England country to Pennsyl- 

 vania, to the Lake states, to the Gulf states. The Southern Pine Asso- 

 ciation reports that within 10 years 3,000 big sawmills will be junked 

 and cut out and gone, and that the cut of Southern pine must drop 

 about 50 per cent. That leaves us the virgin forests of the Pacific Coast. 

 The United States Bureau of Corporations recently made a very elab- 

 orate check on the timber left in the United States and gives us 60 

 years to use up all the log timber at the present rates of consumption. 

 That's only long enough to grow a really nice set of whiskers. Already 

 the Pacific Coast timber, with a two or three thousand-mile haul, is to 

 be found in all the larger towns of the East. So the lumber industry 

 has made its last jump. 



HERE IS CHOICE. 



When the Coast timber begins to run short, in 20 years or so, we 

 can take our pick between Russian timber and Amazon timber, or we 

 can do without timber. If we do not care for those alternatives, of 

 course we can grow some more timber, and pulp wood, and cooperage 

 and box stuff, and trees to yield turpentine and rosin and tannic acid 

 and acetic acid and wood alcohol and charcoal and rifle butts and air- 

 plane propellers and lead pencils and clothes pins and ax handles and 

 bridge timbers and railroad ties and such other items as seem useful 

 to have around in generous quantities, when and where needed, and 

 which come from the forests and from no place else. 



Whenever we get ready we can grow all the timber we want. Grow- 

 ing timber is a simple affair. All you have to do is to stick a little 

 tree into the right sort of ground and wait. 



PROCESS OF PLANTING. 



If you want pine or spruce trees, and if you do not want to depend 

 on luck, first you get the fresh cones from the trees and take out the 



