PREFACE. 



What is the occasion for another book? Surely with the multiplicity of 

 recent publications upon every subject and in every language there must be 

 some reason for adding another work and upon a new subject to vex the mind 

 of mortals and fill the shelves of collectors. 



Probably no people in the world are more extravagant and wasteful of things 

 which may for the time be abundant. In no case is this more marked than 

 in the disposal of American Forests. Once very abundant, now practically gone 

 in most regions, and soon to be but a memory in the United States. 



Books have been written and printed at government expense to prove our 

 vast possessions in forests, which have lulled Congress to sleep upon the matter 

 of forest protection, while interested capitalists have obtained possession of all 

 timber land, and are destroying the nation's wealth. 



Climatic changes are occurring greatly detrimental to the agriculture and 

 other interests of the country from the removal of timber from the great moun- 

 tain ranges. 



Manufacturing industries representing many million dollars ceased opera- 

 tions, while others will soon close down from the exhaustion of timber supplies 

 as the forests are being exterminated. 



Several million laborers, dependent upon the continuance of the wood indus- 

 tries, are obliged to find other occupations as the wheels of machinery become 

 silent from the same cause. 



The inland commerce of the nation is borne upon a thousand million railway 

 cross-ties. While two hundred million are required annually to renew those 

 exhausted from decay. In a quarter of a century five thousand million ties will 

 be demanded for such renewals. 



It is time for America to stop and think what are we going to do when the 

 forests have become exhausted, and this after the first one-third of the Twentieth 

 Century has passed. 



The era for extending the American forest area by extensive planting of 

 trees has come, and we are beginning none too soon. If we can aid the Ameri- 

 can people and those of the old world as well in providing a supply of timber 

 for the coming generation, and show them how we of the present generation 

 may also be benefited, indicating what to plant, where to plant, and how to plant, 

 and incite those who are indifferent and careless as well as those who have a 

 care for the future, and especially if we can bring this matter to the attention of 

 our lawmakers in Congress and various State Legislatures, thus we may be justi- 

 fied in thrusting another book upon the public. 



