AMERICAN FOREST CONGRESS 7 



and especially of its place in the United States. The 

 great industries of agriculture, transportation, mining, 

 grazing, and, of course, lumbering, are each one of 

 them vitally and immediately dependent upon wood, 

 water, or grass from the forest. The manufacturing 

 industries, whether or not wood enters directly into 

 their finished product, are scarcely, if at all, less 

 dependent upon the forest than those whose connection 

 with it is obvious and direct. Wood is an indispensable 

 part of the material structure upon which civilization 

 rests ; and it is to be remembered always that the 

 immense increase of the use of iron and substitutes for 

 wood in many structures, while it has meant a relative 

 decrease in the amount of wood used, has been accom- 

 panied by an absolute increase in the amount of wood 

 used. More wood is used than ever before in our 

 history. Thus, the consumption of wood in shipbuild- 

 ing is far larger than it was before the discovery of the 

 art of building iron ships, because vastly more ships 

 are built. Larger supplies of building lumber are 

 required, directly or indirectly, for use in the construc- 

 tion of the brick and steel and stone structures of great 

 modern cities than were consumed by the compara- 

 tively few and comparatively small wooden buildings 

 in the earlier stages of these same cities. It is as sure 

 as anything can be that we will see in the future a 

 steadily increasing demand for wood in our manufac- 

 turing industries. 



There is one point I want to speak about in addition 

 to the uses of the forest to which I have already 

 alluded. Those of us who have lived on the great 

 plains, who are acquainted with the conditions in parts 

 of Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas, 

 know that wood forms an. immensely portentous ele- 

 ment in helping the farmer on these plains battle 



