94 OUR VANISHING FORESTS 



railroads. It has been estimated that the people of 

 Connecticut alone thus pay a freight bill of over 

 $3,000,000 per annum. 



The immediate effect of this situation is not, as 

 one might suppose, the elimination of waste, and 

 the closer utilization of the wood in every tree, but 

 quite the reverse. When the western lumberman 

 must obtain his logs from the rough mountain fast- 

 nesses, when he receives for his product less than 

 one-half of its eastern wholesale value, he can afford 

 to cut only the best and most easily workable trees; 

 he can sell at a profit only the best and clearest lum- 

 ber. The rest? It is left in the woods, or burned 

 on a rubbish pile to avoid cluttering up his yards. 

 Many of us have witnessed the dreadful aftermath 

 of logging operations in the west: a tangle of dis- 

 carded trunks unavoidably knocked over in the 

 struggle to bring out the good logs at a limited cost, 

 great heaps of tops and branches with pillar-like 

 stumps projecting through, a raging conflagration 

 set by some careless spark, and then utter desola- 

 tion. 



In Europe the situation today is far different. At 

 the gates of nearly every city and town on the conti- 

 nent lie pleasant looking woodlands which, with 

 little change in their outward appearance, furnish a 

 permanent source of wood and lumber free of trans- 



