34 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



themselves readily to the everyday uses of civil- 

 ized life. 



Again, it may be well supplied with valuable 

 kinds, but these are found so scattered among 

 the less valuable growth, the tree weeds, that 

 their exploitation becomes cumbersome and ex- 

 pensive. 



Thus we see Brazil and other South American 

 countries, and Australia, in spite of their extensive 

 forest areas, come to the United States for their 

 lumber supplies, lacking as they do the soft, easily 

 worked, yet strong and elastic coniferous kinds, 

 which are par excellence the materials of construc- 

 tion. 



Again, the valuable hardwoods of those coun- 

 tries, possessing excellent qualities, besides their 

 beauty, for which alone we use them at present, 

 will never be able to compete or supplant our own 

 materials, for they occur in single individuals scat- 

 tered among hundreds of other species, so that to 

 supply any considerable quantity of any one kind 

 requires culling over many acres, which renders 

 them too expensive for general use. 



There is therefore nothing but ignorance in the 

 comfortable ideas of those who look forward to 

 a supply of wood from those countries when our 

 own supplies give out. 



A proposition to secure statistics of the produc- 

 tive forest area and timber supplies of the world 

 ready for the axe, and of the consumption by the 



