92 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



Toronto, I received a circular from the United States Forest Service giving changes 

 in timber prices for the last twelve years which is to the point, and I also picked up a 

 piece of reading which may be interesting to you, being the opinion of a well known 

 authority Mulhall, the great British statistician. 



He says in 1885, that "The supply of timber is practically inexhaustible. 

 There has been a falling off of thirty-six per cent, in the price from 1850 to 1880, 

 notwithstanding the great increase in consumption," and again that "The area 

 of all wood cut is nineteen million acres, and may be increased to forty million 

 before it reaches the natural limit, so that there is no ground for alarm that our 

 posterity in the next century may have to face a famine of timber. But on the 

 contrary we may look for a continued fall in prices, as facilities increase for bringing 

 in timbers for commercial use from all parts of the world." 



Now, I have placed on the wall here a chart, a silent persuader in the shape 

 of statistical curves showing the changes in the price of lumber, and, even to one 

 unaccustomed to looking at such curves, it will appear how ridiculous the pre- 

 dictions of Mulhall are. The explanation of this curious statement of Mulhall lies 

 in the fact that the figures he uses are based on a price established in the British 

 customs return in 1794, and on other palpably unreliable data. 



We have been talking for twenty-six years on this subject of a probable timber 

 famine, and some time ago I was asked where was that predicted timber famine. I 

 said, you have been asleep, it is upon us already, for when prices rise continu- 

 ously at a rapid rate there must be a famine not an absolute absence of material, 

 but an increase of prices makes a famine; and the prices have risen very swiftly > 

 as you see. 



This more or less horizontal line indicates the prices before 1899, while this 

 rapidly ascending line represents the prices since that year, and from the character 

 of the curve you can see that this rise in price will go on, as may also be predicted 

 from other data, I can assure you. As you see from this chart, every year you pay 

 just eight per cent, more for your wood than you did the year before. Have you 

 no interest in that? I mean has the public in general no interest in this forestry 

 question? It seems to me they have. Everybody must have an interest in it, 

 because it touches his pocket. 



Another point I wish to make on this chart, namely that while before 

 1899 prices went up and down from year to year, but on the whole remained level, 

 from the year 1899 prices of all grades of wood began an upward course. What 

 is the reason? Something must have occurred in 1899, the end of the century, which 

 affected not merely one kind of timber like white pine, but also everything else. 



The explanation is simple; in 1899 the data collected by the United States 

 Census regarding supply and demand of forest products became known, which 



