Pollard: Conservation, the National Issue 131 



trend of the mountain range from which it was named, growing 

 chiefly on the higher plateaus and slopes. It was almost entirely 

 coniferous, being composed of western yellow pine, lodgepole 

 pine, Douglas fir, larch, spruce, and other trees, and was limited 

 to the westward by extensive desert areas in Arizona, Nevada, 

 Utah, Oregon, and Idaho. It was then replaced along the Sierras 

 and in the Cascade ranges by the Pacific forest, which was also 

 of the coniferous type, and included redwood, sugar pine, western 

 red cedar, Douglas fir, and various other pines, firs, and spruces. 



I have used the past tense in speaking of these forests, for the 

 reason that as the settlement of the country has progressed they 

 have been so much reduced by cutting, clearing, and fire as to be 

 but remnants of their former luxuriance. It is estimated that 

 the virgin forest of the United States covered 850 million acres 

 and contained 5,200 billion board feet of saw timber. The latest 

 government report (1909) that I have examined, gives the pres- 

 ent acreage as 550 million, with a total stand of 2,500 billion 

 board feet. The heaviest reduction is to be observed in the cen- 

 tral forest, where the present stand is only one fifth of the original. 

 This is to be expected, in view of the fact that the hardwood 

 forest of the Central West occupied a soil of great agricultural 

 value, and was consequently rapidly cleared to make room for 

 farms. The Pacific forest, on the other hand, owing to its com- 

 parative inaccessibility and the cost of freightage to eastern lum- 

 ber markets, still occupies 90 per cent of its original area and 

 includes 80 per cent of the original stand. 



With these facts in mind, our next inquiry is how long the 

 supply of timber in this country may be expected to last. The 

 figures on this subject are not altogether satisfactory, owing to 

 the uncertainty of various factors which must enter into consid- 

 eration in the calculation of estimates. We know, for example, 

 that the annual cut of timber for all purposes averages about 50 

 billions of board feet, of which four fifths are used for lumber 

 and the rest is devoted to other purposes, such as pulpwood, shin- 

 gles, cooperage stock, veneer, poles, distillation, etc. But we can 



