AMERICAN FOREST CONGRESS 191 



her. We are using trees that we used to think worth- 

 less. We are sawing everything that will make a 

 board and some that will not, and as Mr. Defebaugh 

 has said, you will find 4x45 with bark on all four 

 corners. As was a common expression in the days of 

 the war, we are "robbing the cradle as well as the 

 grave." We are paying no respect to age or value of 

 timber, but are cutting it down and getting rid of it. 



The consumption to-day may fairly be estimated at 

 from 46,000,000,000 to 50,000,000,000 feet of timber 

 annually. I remember a young man with grand pros- 

 pects for lumber manufacture who told me he had 

 secured an option on 360 acres and wanted to build a 

 mill on it and asked me for my advice as to how to 

 make $25,000 profit. I told him that that amount of 

 timber would be just a good week's bite for some of 

 the modern saw mills and that the mill would never 

 be paid for by the profits. A great many people have 

 the same inability to understand big figures and the 

 immensity of the lumber business, but when I tell you 

 that the consumption of lumber during a single day 

 is something like 13,000,000 to 15,000,000 feet you will 

 perhaps get some appreciation of the vastness of the 

 lumber trade. It is claimed by Government authorities 

 that the lumber industry is the fourth in extent. I 

 claim it to be the first. I claim the value of the vast 

 industry has given us one-fourth to one-third of the 

 financial value of the country. Our financial interests 

 are computed at $96,000,000,000. I believe the forests 

 have given us from $25,000,000,000 to $30,000,000,000 

 of that amount, and where is one other industry that 

 exceeds it ? So little is understood of the value of the 

 lumber trade that I must give you one little illustration : 

 The product of the California gold field I have watched 

 with interest, having been a forty-niner. Our produc- 



