CREATION AND ORGANIZATION 5 



even outdoing Michigan during its Golden Age. 

 In 1915 about 20 per cent, of the cut came from 

 the Coast but the South still furnished almost 50 

 per cent. 



Our Lumber and Water Supply Imperiled. In 

 our prodigal use of our forest resources we have 

 become the most lavish users of wood in the world. 

 While the annual consumption per capita for 

 France is about 25 cubic feet, and that of Germany 

 about 40 cubic feet, our per capita consumption is 

 in the neighborhood of 250 cubic feet. And the 

 most terrible thing about our reckless methods has 

 been that we have wasted by crude lumbering meth- 

 ods and we have let great forest fires consume many 

 times as much lumber as we have used. There have 

 been vast public and private losses through unnec- 

 essary forest fires which not only consumed mil- 

 lions of dollars' worth of timber every year, but 

 which also cost the lives of thousands of settlers. 

 Then, as every one knows, by being grossly negli- 

 gent with our forests, our rivers have visited their 

 wrath upon the unfortunate people in the valleys. 

 Many streams have become raging torrents in the 

 spring and only chains of stagnant pools in the 

 summer, thus destroying their value for water 



