FORESTRY MOVEMENT IN UNITED STATES. 373 



Besides the concentration of the lumber busi- 

 ness into large establishments which these figures 

 show, there are other interesting changes indicated 

 in the census figures, which have a bearing upon 

 the question of the need of a forest policy and the 

 cause for its development. While in 1890 the 

 efficiency of the single mill establishments had in- 

 creased to three times what it was in 1870, and to 

 nearly fifty times that of 1840, the total product 

 had also increased in the last twenty years nearly 

 three times, but the capital employed in the lum- 

 ber industry had increased four and one-third times ; 

 and while capital became less efficient with concen- 

 tration, the unit product of labor also became less 

 efficient in spite of the improvement of machinery, 

 every dollar of capital producing less result by over 

 40 per cent in 1890, in the value of the product, 

 and every dollar of wages producing less result by 

 over 12 per cent, but the cost of raw material had 

 increased over 16 per cent, — all these are signs 

 pointing to the deterioration and exhaustion of 

 supplies at least in the principal producing regions. 

 The census of 1900 is, at present writing, not ac- 

 cessible in a form permitting such comparisons, 

 except that we can note an apparent increase in 

 value of product of nearly 30 per cent over that of 

 1890. (See Appendix for further details.) 



It would be difficult to set a date or mark an 

 event from which the change in the methods of 

 the lumber industry, now such a stupendous factor 



