A Decennial Recokd 127 



veloped agricultural regions an assured supply of containers for 

 shipping farm j^roducts to market has become a serious problem in 

 itself. 



A group of oiu* important nianufactin-ers, the makers of wood 

 veneers, handles, vehicles, furnitin-e, and agricultural implements con- 

 sume one and one-half billion feet of timber yearly. It is upon this 

 group, perhaps, that the growing shortage of timber falls most heavily, 

 since they require largely high grade hardwoods and other timber 

 which the virgin forests of the United States furnished so lavishly, 

 but M-hich it is now becoming more and more difficidt to find in suffi- 

 cient quantities. 



All told, we demand of our forests about fifty-six billion feet of 

 timber yearly, aside from well over one hundred million cords of small 

 material for fuel and various chemical products. There is nothing 

 comparable to this enormous use of wood in the history of the world. 

 AVe are preeminently a wood-using nation. It is wood that has devel- 

 oped our farm lands, that has largely built and equipped our railroads, 

 and that supports many of our most valuable and distinctive manufac- 

 turing industries. We use from two to four times as much wood — for 

 every member of our population — as the most highly developed coun- 

 tries of Euro])e. Tlie abundance and general distribution of our native 

 forests have liad a tremendous part in the domestic and industrial de- 

 velopment of tlie United States and in its commercial supremacy. We 

 can not face the future without a so])er and intelligent consideration 

 of that fact. 



Even M'ith the large substitutions of other materials for lumber, 

 the United States Avitli its growing poj)ulation can not greatly reduce 

 its present total use of wood without serious injury to its liome ])uild- 

 ing, its agriculture and its manufactures. And we must find out how 

 to supply our own needs largely from our own resources, for it is doubt- 

 ful if lumber imports can be greatly increased within reasonable prices. 



So much do we ask of our forests. How far can our forests fill 

 this order? 



The original forests of tlie I'nited States are supposed to have 

 covered eight hundred twenty-two million acres. Over two-thirds of 

 this area has been cidled. cut-over, or burnt. There are left today 

 about four hundred sixty-three million acres of forest and cut-over 

 land of all sorts, M-hicli contains about two thousand two hundred and 



