No. 4,] FORESTRY LV MASSACHUSETTS. 45 



proi)hctic vision placed near this time ? His wise words bear 

 quoting : "It is feared it will be long, perhaps a full century, 

 before the results at which we ought to aim as a nation will 

 be realized by our whole country, to wit, that we should raise 

 an adequate su})ply of wood and timber for all our wants. 

 The evils which are anticipated will })robal)ly increase upon 

 us for twenty 3'ears to come with tenfold the rapidity with 

 which restoring or ameliorating measures shall be adopted. 

 The nation has had plenty and to spare ; but within thirty 

 years she will be conscious that not only individual want is 

 present, but that it comes to each from permanent national 

 famine of wood." 



AVithin a decade of the appointed time this prediction will 

 be almost literally true. 



Let me, at the risk of being charged with wandering from 

 my subject, — which is only apparently a true charge, — 

 adduce some persuasive indicatipns that the day of evil is 

 close upon us ; that, therefore, we may now stop arguing and 

 talking, and, like wise men, begin doing. 



Study the change of prices in wood ; they are sure signs 

 of the conditions of supply and demand. It is perhaps not 

 possible to draw valid conclusions from one statistical item, 

 but if we find that the price of white pine uppers during the 

 thirty years from 1870 to 1900 advanced 50 per cent, and in 

 the three years following advanced 56 per cent, we do not 

 need tine discrimination in order to realize that the end of 

 this class of supply is near. Similarly, all other woods have 

 during the last fifteen years appreciated between 50 and 100 

 per cent ; but there is hardly any lumber of any kind that 

 has not during the last 3' ear advanced in price by at least 10 

 to 15 per cent, excepting culls and other inferior material. 

 The Massachusetts farmer wdio has only firewood and box 

 boards to sell has probably not benefited much from this 

 change in price, for when the cream has been taken, every- 

 body has skim milk to sell ; in other words, the supply of 

 firewood and inferior materials is and will remain for a lono- 

 time overstocked in many regions, as a consequence of the 

 loss of the saw timber, and through the new gro^vth of inferior 

 quality on mismanaged or unmanaged woodlots and slashings. 



