APPENDIX E. 206 



one of the sanest reviews of the existing timber situa- 

 tion ever published, cites several similar instances for 

 other parts of the country and for much earlier periods. 

 As far back as 1749, and again in 1795, he says, alarm 

 was felt in some of the northern states over the dimin- 

 ishing supply of timber, and tree-planting was advocat- 

 ed as a remedy. Another instance of the same kind came 

 to my notice a few years ago. A writer in the American 

 Journal of Science about 1830, which was before there 

 were any railroads, expressed the fear that the forests 

 would soon be used up for steamboat fuel! 



The principal factor which has prevented the realiza- 

 tion of these early predictions of a timber famine has 

 been the discovery and exploitation of vast forests 

 which were unknown or at least inaccessible (on account 

 of the absence of railroads) in those days. (The open- 

 ing up of innumerable coal mines might be regarded as 

 having operated to diminish the drain on the forests for 

 fuel, but it is doubtful if it has kept pace with the in- 

 crease of population and manufactures. If there had 

 never been any coal mines on this continent the United 

 States would be still almost entirely an agricultural na- 

 tion, and the population would be much less than it is.) 



We have perhaps nearly reached the end of the possi- 

 bility of relief through the discovery of new supplies of 

 timber, for the extent of the forests of the United States 

 is now pretty well known, and nearly every standing tree 

 has been seen by one or more lumbermen. Some timber 

 of course can and will be imported from more thinly set- 

 tled countries, such as Canada and South America, but 

 the farther it has to be transported the more it costs the 

 consumer. The preservation of our forests in the future 

 will have to depend chiefly on the operation of the well- 

 known economic law of supply and demand. As wood 

 becomes scarcer and less accessible its price will rise and 

 less of it will be used per capita. 



By far the greatest demands on the forests at present 

 are for fuel and building-material. No statistics of the 

 amount of wood consumed for fuel seem to be available, 

 but the rate is not likely to decrease much very soon, be- 

 cause people living at a distance from railroads and coal 

 mines cannot very well use coal. The use of wood for 



