PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 17 



With trees in the tropics growing so very slowly, the forests will be hun- 

 dreds of years in action after the present growth has been removed. 



Meantime the rapid growing vines, creepers and valueless shrubs will 

 quickly cover the c; n and give it a forest appearance. 



The white pine, in the north temperate zone, may be reproduced in from 

 seventy to one hundred and fifty years. The black walnut may be grown to 

 merchantable size in fifty to seventy years; the yellow poplar (Liriodendron* 

 in forty to sixty years ; the catalpa speciosa in twenty to thirty years, Ameri- 

 can red cedar (Juniperus Virginiana) requiring one hundred years to make 

 merchantable lumber. 



It will require ten times as long to produce a forest of ebony or rosewood 

 in the tropics as to produce an oak forest in the Middle States of America. And 

 it will require twenty-five times as many years to produce an average hard 

 wood tropic forest as to grow a catalpa forest in Louisiana. 



The exhibits of wood from Nicaragua are very fine, comprising several 

 hundred species. Costa Rica makes an excellent showing of timber, while 

 Guatemala has an extraordinary display. 



Brazil brings two thousand species of wood, many of which are of the high- 

 est class for cabinet work. 



Tropical Mexico exhibits a large and handsome collection of cabinet woods, 

 all of extreme hardness. 



The magnificently finished articles and large specimens of wood brought 

 from the Philippines were taken from an unculled forest, bought at an enor- 

 mous expense by the United States authorities to exploit the productions of 

 our new acquisition. 



The same rule holds good here as with the other tropic countries. Valua- 

 ble tropic woods grow very slowly. There are few trees of importance, while 

 dense jungles of vines and inferior trees fill in the gaps. After the lumbermen 

 get the cream of the trees skirting the coast and streams, and the logging roads 

 are constructed into the interior, the cost of removal will be far greater than 

 the value of the product. And when the cream has been gathered how long 

 will the world wait for a second crop? 



The forests of more temperate zones grow more rapidly. They produce 

 commercial woods which are more easily worked, more easily transported, and 

 are of greater utility for the manufacturing industries and the commercial 

 world. 



The world must look to the United States, Canada and Russia of the north- 

 ern and to Argentine Republic of the southern hemisphere for the permanent 

 timber supplies. 



The question which now arises is, will the Governments which control the 

 great forest regions of the world, and which must supply the timber for the 

 future generations, be wise enough and patriotic enough to provide for the 

 inevitable result which must occur before the middle of the Twentieth Cen- 

 tury, when without a radical change in present methods, the forests of America 

 will become exhausted? 



