58 



TIMBER DEPLETION, PRICES, EXPORTS, AND OWNERSHIP. 



This effect will be most pronounced in the case of American 

 hardwoods. The foreign demand for such species not only 

 includes cabinet, furniture making, and finishing woods of 

 special beauty, like walnut or quartered oak, but also many 

 woods used in manufacturing essentials of commerce and in- 

 dustry, like oak and hickory wagon stock, hickory spokes, high- 

 grade car stock, ash and hickory handles, woods used In agricul- 

 tural implements, and the like. The supply of old-growth 

 hardwoods from which most of these products are obtained is 

 nearing its end. Our domestic industries are securing such 

 materials with increasing difficulty and cost. Except as substi- 

 tute woods or other materials may be found, the growing short- 

 age of these products must in any event seriously handicap 

 American industry and commerce. 



The second important bearing of foreign shipments is upon 

 the remaining supply of high-grade southern yellow pine which, 

 up to the present time, has furnished about half of the total 

 lumber exports. The materials which the foreign consumer de- 

 mands include a large proportion of high-grade flooring and 

 other forms of finish and large timbers for shipbuilding and 

 other structural purposes. The situation as to the supply of 

 these products is less serious, and quite unlike that which holds 

 true of the hardwoods. The total production of yellow-pine 

 lumber will probably decline steadily during the next 10 or 15 

 years ; and the production of high-quality products from old 

 growth will drop off still more rapidly. Such high-grade prod- 

 ucts will, however, continue to be cut from particular localities 

 or holdings, though in diminished amounts, for 30 to 40 years, 

 and the substitution of western softwoods for both export and 

 domestic products now made of southern pine is entirely prac- 

 ticable. 



In the third place, export demands will strike the large sup- 

 plies of high quality softwood timber in the Western States. 

 The Pacific coast carries on a gradually increasing trade with 

 the Orient, with Australia, with South America, and with 

 Europe. It will logically replace the exports of southern pine 

 as that timber is further depleted. Here, again, the foreign de- 

 mand will take mainly high-grade products, particularly large 

 structural timbers, shipbuilding materials, and the better grades 

 of clear flooring and other forms of finish. With this demand 

 for high-grade materials will probably be supplied varying 

 quantities of railroad ties and general utility lumber. 



The large virgin forests of the West will sustain the maxi- 

 mum demand made upon them by the export trade for many 

 years without serious effect upon domestic markets. The do- 

 mestic demand for high-quality timber products from the West 

 will, it is true, increase with rapidity as their production in 

 the South falls off. ' And in the West, as in the South, the first 

 evidence of depletion will be a scarcity of products of high qual- 

 ity. There is this marked difference, however, in the West, 

 that the existence of large National Forests where timber is 

 cut under careful restrictions affords a means for reserving rea- 

 sonable quantities of high-quality timber and for producing 

 stumpage of this grade. 



It must therefore be recognized that a material increase in 

 the export lumber trade would accentuate the shortage of high- 

 quality products available to American consumers. The prob- 

 lem presented by lumber exports is not serious from the stand- 

 point of quantity. It may prove serious from the standpoint of 

 quality. Scarcity of high-quality products essential to our ship 

 and car building and many other industries is the first and one 

 of the most serious effects of timber depletion. 



The eventual solution of the problem presented by an active 

 foreign trade is therefore identical with the remedy for deple- 

 tion through domestic consumption, namely, not to restrict the 

 use, but to increase the production of timber by getting all 

 forest-growing land at work. It must be recognized, however, 

 that this remedy in itself will not entirely meet the need for 

 timber of high quality. With some exceptions, such material 



can not be grown in less than 150 years ; and even if every acre 

 of denuded land in the United States were planted to-morrow, 

 a long time would elapse before the depletion of high-quality 

 stumpage which has been cut so freely from our virgin forests 

 could be made good. Furthermore, the private landowner can 

 seldom afford to carry timber crops during the long periods 

 necessary to produce material of high quality. The most ef- 

 fective means of overcoming the shortage of high-grade timber 

 is the creation of public forests which can be utilized to the 

 extent necessary for the production of large timber or special 

 products. 



The bulk of the high-quality timber -produced in France and 

 other countries of Continental Europe is grown in public forests, 

 it being a recognized function of the Government to produce 

 on Its forest lands the classes of material which will not be 

 grown in sufficient quantity on private lands because of the 

 time and cost involved. This policy has already been applied 

 to the hardwood forests acquired by the United States in the 

 southern Appalachians pursuant to the Weeks Act. As far as 

 practicable, these forests will be handled so as to produce high- 

 quality hardwoods rather than railroad ties and common lum- 

 ber, so that they may be at least a factor in meeting the short- 

 age of such products. But no adequate provision for the grow- 

 ing of high-grade eastern woods has yet been made. It can be 

 made only by largely extending the public forests in the 

 Eastern States. 



IMPORTS OF FOREST PRODUCTS. 



During the four years preceding the war the imports of 

 lumber and logs ranged from 1,100,000,000 to 1,300,000,000 board 

 feet, or about one-third the volume of exports during the same 

 period. Beginning with 1917, there was a marked increase in 

 wood imports. In 1918 imports exceeded exports by 100,000,000 

 board feet, and in 1919 the excess of imports was probably much 

 greater. Aside from the importation of 1,370,000 cords of pulp 

 wood from Canada in 1918, the United States imported 596,000 

 tons of wood pulp and 516,000 tons of paper, chiefly from the 

 same source. 



Imports of timber and timber products fall into three classes : 



(1) Cabinet woods, like mahogany and cigar-box cedar, and 

 other valuable woods, like South, American greenheart, which 

 can not be obtained in the United States. The imports of cedar 

 amount to nearly 20,000,000 board feet annually, and the im- 

 ports of mahogany to 50,000,000 board feet. 



(2) Saw logs and manufactured lumber from Canada, shipped 

 into the United States by the natural routes of commerce on 

 the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and by favorable railroad chan- 

 nels. Such imports aggregate about 1,000,000,000 feet per year, 

 aside from which Canada also ships close to a billion shingles 

 into the United States annually. These imports compete di- 

 rectly with similar products manufactured in the United States. 

 There is, indeed, approximately the same flow of. lumber across 

 the Canadian boundary in each direction, determined by the 

 favorable location of consuming regions in one country with 

 respect to lumber-producing centers in the other. 



(3) Paper and materials for making paper. The imports 

 of pulp wood, pulp, and manufactured paper in 1918, prac- 

 tically all of which came from Canada, were approximately 

 2,071,000 tons. Imports of corresponding products were still 

 greater in 1919. They furnish about two-thirds of the news- 

 print paper consumed in. the United States, a proportion which 

 will grow steadily unless the foreign trade policy adopted by 

 Canada prevents. 



Other imports of forest products are at the present time of 

 negligible importance. Prior to the war the United States im- 

 ported considerable quantities of chemical pulp and high-grade 

 papers from Scandinavia, a trade whose partial resumption is 

 to be expected. A small quantity of lumber is shipped to our 

 west coast from Japan and Korea. The enormous timber re- 



