ECONOMIC. 65 



It realizes no essential difference in the folly of cutting a field of grain 

 when but a part of it is fit for the reaper and denuding an area of forest 

 land of which a portion only is in condition for service. The friends of 

 forestry consider trees as much a gift of the Creator as any other vegetable 

 product; they recognize that being placed here for the use of man, man 

 should use them when matured. It is not the use but the abuse of the for- 

 ests against which we are arrayed." 



SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 



* 



At a meeting of different forestry organizations held in Albany, N. Y., 

 March, 1894, among the other matter-of-fact things presented for serious 

 thought was this, by John W. Wood, a lumber dealer, of Boston, who, after 

 detailing the scarcity of timber on special lines, stated that there are "pro- 

 gressive lumbermen among the friends of the forestry movement"; that 

 such do not "stand to the forests in the light that the potato bug does to 

 the potato plant." He added: "The question for the lumberman to settle 

 is, where is he to find the material on which to continue his business? 

 Wood can be had from the tropics for certain purposes, but it is very ex- 

 pensive. All the mountains of our country have been scoured by men on 

 foot and on horseback who v/ere seeking fresh lumber supplies, and the 

 question now is, where is the wood to come from?" 



In an address delivered by Coi. Piatt B. Walker, a prominent lumberman 

 of Minneapolis, at the forestry session of the Horticultural Society, Jan- 

 uary 11, 1892, he gives this voice of warning: "The destruction of forests in 

 America during the century (especially the last half) is unparalleled in the 

 world's history, both in its extent and in the ferocity of its slaughter. The 

 bulk of the timber which adorned the country over, the Middle states in 

 particular, was consigned to the flames to make way for the plow. This 

 timber comprised a long list of varieties of useful and valuable woods. If 

 the oak, walnut, cherry, ash and other woods which went to the log heap, 

 or into fence rails, were standing to-day in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, 

 it would net enough to give a stone mansion to every farmer in those states. 

 Be it said, in extenuation of this almost crime, that its perpetrators were 

 not prophets, and could not see that this world of timber could ever be 

 utilized or would grow into enormous values for domestic as well as export 

 purposes. The destruction of our pine forests has proceeded for the last 

 quarter of a century at a rate that will soon deprive us of a supply of this 

 timber. Eastern Michigan is practically denuded and relies on Canadian 

 timber to run her mills, and the western half will soon be in the same con- 

 dition, with no outside supply available for her mills. The Southern states 

 have not, as yet, made such fearful inroads on their timber resources, but 

 they are afflicted with the same mania for destroying which has character- 

 ized the Northern states. Another generation will complete the destruc- 

 tion of the invaluable timber supply which adorns that section of our coun- 



