CHAPTER I 



Such Stuff as Homes are Made of 



Lumber and wood for our homes; why we build 

 houses of wood ; home furnishings. 



Centuries ago, even before the stone age, man's 

 greatest friend was the forest, but it is hard to be- 

 lieve that he was then any more dependent upon its 

 products than we in America are today. Perhaps 

 the fact that the earliest settlers found this country 

 one almost unbroken expanse of timber to the very 

 limit of their travels, while their descendants for 

 two centuries contended against the virgin forest 

 for a livelihood, changed the character of western 

 civilization. At any rate, we have been the last 

 people in the world to commence to outgrow the 

 wood-using habit, and as long as wood gives us less 

 expensive dwellings and conveniences, and corre- 

 spondingly higher standards of living than are found 

 elsewhere in the world, why should we change ? 



We people of the United States consume every 

 year enough wood in the form of lumber alone to 

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