THE IRKIGATION AGE. 



G09 



Eucalyptus Timber 



California's Greatest Industry 



BY JOHN W. WARD, 



President, International Eucalyptus Associations 



One of the greatest problems before the industrial 

 world today is that of adequate timber supply. A supply 

 of timber, of wood, is vital to human life, and absolutely 

 indispensable to progress and prosperity. The American 

 people did not earn, nor do they appreciate the magnificent 

 endowment of native timber with which they are blessed; 

 they did not acquire it by the sweat of the brow, did not 

 laboriously propagate the millions and billions of forest 

 trees, did not plant them and foster their growth. The 

 timber was here, it was easily taken, and, like many an- 

 other thing, easily acquired, is as easily dissipated. 



It is time to stop and think. The heritage is fast 

 disappearing, and the time is fast approaching when a vast 



while exact data is not available to prove the assertion, it 

 is believed that as much timber is consumed and de- 

 stroyed by forest fires and wasted through inexcusable 

 logging methods, as all the timber utilized by men. Al- 

 lowing for these causes to greatly increase the destruction 

 and consumption of the remaining timber, the twenty-three 

 and one-third years seem alarmingly reasonable. 



And the situation with reference to the hardwoods 

 alone is much more menacing. The Forestry Bureau, 

 adopting the largest estimate ever made on remaining 

 hardwood timber, states the United States has standing an 

 available supply of four hundred billion feet. Seemingly 

 an inexhaustible supply until the same bureau estimates 

 the annual consumption at twenty-five billion feet. A 

 sixteen years' supply of hardwoods and the last tree 

 is gone. 



The price of hardwood timber has not kept pace with 

 the advance of the soft woods, and yet the advance is 

 almost 100% in the last twelve years. As the supply ap- 

 proaches an end, as the proportion of reserve to increasing 

 demand grows more acute, the price will become pro- 

 hibitive for a multitude of purposes for which hardwood 

 is now deemed indispensable. The result can be imagined: 

 Commercial depression in its broadest sense, compared to 

 which in its far-reaching effects, a full-fledged panic is but 

 a summer's breeze. 



leblo. Colo. Mineral Palace in the Background. 



work must be done to maintain a supply of timber 

 thoughtlessly deemed inexhaustible by a great majority of 

 America's citizens even to this day. But stop. Think. 

 Figure. Be serious for a time and consider the. facts as 

 presented by the Forestry Bureau of the United States 

 Government. A few simple calculations will serve to con- 

 vince every reader that he who plants a tree is doubly 

 blessed. 



Considering every wooded acre in the United States, 

 in private and public ownership, the nation holds a scant 

 700,000,000 acres of wooded area. A tremendous amount 

 of timber. But, every working day about 100,000 acres 

 are cut over, partly utilized, largely wasted, and rep.ro- 

 ductively wholly destroyed. One hundred thousand acres 

 each day means 30,000,000 acres per year. Cut out the be- 

 wildering ciphers and you will be startled to see that 

 twenty-three and one-third years will see the last tree cut. 

 The figures are big, they are comprehensive, covering the 

 whole great nation. Some sections will be stripped in a 

 few years, while other sections will hold to the last. And 

 just one more strong statement so that the reader may 

 no think the figures unfair: The figures are based on 

 present rate of consumption, whereas per capita consump- 

 tion is increasing and population is rapidly piling up. And 



The pessimist will mourn over the figures and deplore 

 the waste; the optimist will feel that something will surely 

 solve the problem and will seek for a remedy to the 

 situation. Whenever the world in its onward march has 

 struck a stone wall in the path of progress, something 

 has always "turned up" to clear the way for industrial 

 and economic advancement. A nation was isolated, its 

 commerce limited to narrowest scope, and we find the 

 sailing vessels. Another era and something had to move 

 the stone wall from the path and steam transportation 

 by water and rail opened up a broader horizon. Again 

 physical limitation handicapped commerce and industry 

 the telegraph and telephone cleared the way. Coincident 

 with these steps in commercial advancement, science de- 

 veloped the steel industries, opened up the natural re- 

 sources of forest and field and mine, until today the United 

 States is the most highly commercialized, systematized, 

 specialized, and I might say, idolized, nation of the world. 



The Pacific Coast will be the salvation of the timber 

 industries soft woods and hard woods, because they are 

 already here, and before it is too late there will be estab- 

 lished a system of conservation, regulation and affore- 

 station which will get the utmost from thp timber re- 



