USES OF LAND 169 



(/) FORESTS AND TIMBER SUPPLIES. 



The rapid consumption of the stocks of standing timber in all 

 temperate regions by saw-mills and paper mills, for firewood, and 

 by forest fires is a serious factor, the influence of which upon 

 agricultural industries is beginning to be felt. In the United 

 States, where the rapid destruction of natural forests has been most 

 marked, and where the rate of consumption is increasing most 

 noticeably, it is stated that a timber famine is threatened. It is 

 not likely that the rate of consumption of merchant timber 

 throughout the world will decline in any great measure in the near 

 future, though the consumption of firewood may be reduced by 

 an increased output of coal, and forest fires may become less de- 

 structive with the adoption of more effective precautions against 

 their occurrence. 



The destruction of forests in many parts of the world has been 

 hastened by the desire to clear the land for pastoral industries 

 and for cultivation, 1 and much timber has been destroyed on the 

 ground where it grew, because too far from means of communica- 

 tion to be of immediate market value. The net effect of the 

 methods of forest exploitation, as practised during the last fifty 

 years, has been to increase the supplies of wool and meat available 

 for export from new countries at the expense of future timber 

 supplies. Unfortunately, large areas of hilly land that have been 

 denuded of their forests in North America and elsewhere have soon 

 lost their original fertility through surface erosion, and are now 

 producing neither timber nor pastures. 2 



It is indeed doubtful whether wholesale timber-cutting can safely 

 be proceeded with anywhere in the temperate regions, except, 

 perhaps, in Canada and Northern Russia and Siberia, when proper 

 consideration is given to the world's future requirements in timber 

 supplies, and to the avoidance of permanent injury to climatic 

 conditions and soil fertility. Even in Canada, Russia and Siberia 

 the forests are said to have a moderating effect upon climatic ex- 

 tremes, 3 so that their disappearance would reduce the productive 

 capacity of the agricultural lands lying to the south of them. 



There are, of course, enormous tracts of untouched tropical 

 forests still remaining in the world, and these are capable of sup- 

 plying commercial timbers ; but besides difficulties connected with 

 labour and transpoit, the number of useful varieties is limited and 

 does not include many that are easily worked. These forests will 

 probably not be called upon to furnish an important part of the 



1 In their evidence given before the Dominions Commission in 1913 a 

 number of New Zealand witnesses seemed to think that it is desirable to 

 convert as much as possible of the still intact forests into sheep runs in the 

 shortest possible time, but they did not dwell upon the need for afforestation. 



* Compare American Report on Soil Erosion and Forest Conservation 

 Yearbook of Agriculture, 1913, pp. 207-221, also U.S. Dept. Agric., Bulletin 

 180. 



8 See Bonmariage, La Russie d' Europe. Chap. vi. 



