122 OF WOOD IN GENERAL. 



resources of the continent. Mr. B. E. Fernow, Chief of the 

 Forestry Division of the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 in 1886 expressed the opinion that the reason why the prophecies 

 of a dearth of timber made for more than a century by alarmists 

 in Europe have not been realized is that their clamour has induced 

 more careful husbanding of forest-resources. He then estimated 

 the forest area of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, as less 

 than 500 million acres, much of this being only brushwood or 

 thinly stocked with trees. The amount of wood then used he 

 quotes as 20,000 million cubic feet, made up as follows : 



Lumber-market and manufacture, 2,500 million. 

 Railroad construction, 360 ,, 



Charcoal, 250 ,, 



Fences, 500 



Fuel, - 17,500 



"There is also to be added," he writes, "an item requiring 

 yearly a considerable amount of wood for a use to which no other 

 civilized nation puts its forests. I refer to the 10,000,000 acres 

 or so of woodland burnt over every year, intentionally or unin- 

 tentionally, by which a large amount of timber is killed or made 

 useless ; and, what is worse . . . the capacity of the soil for tree 

 growth is diminished." Reckoning 50 cubic feet as the yearly 

 accretion per acre, the 20,000 million cubic feet consumption here 

 indicated would require an area of not less than 400 million acres 

 to be kept well stocked. 



Some day, no doubt, the development of the coal-fields of the 

 United States will considerably lessen the consumption under the 

 largest of the above-mentioned items, and there is certainly room 

 for economizing in other directions. It is computed, for instance, 

 that, in the Californian Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forests, to 

 produce a railroad-tie worth 35 cents, timber to the value of 1 -87 

 dollars is wasted. In 1894 there were in the United States 

 156,497 miles of railroad ; there were in 1899 189,294 miles. 

 Reckoning 2640 as the average number of sleepers per mile 

 would make the number used by 1884 413,152,080. The young 

 sound trees employed will not commonly make more than two 



