CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTION, 
It isadmitted that Trees are essential to civilization, 
and the fact is acknowledged that man cannot ad- 
vance in improvement beyond the rudest form of 
pastoral life, without the use of timber. The question 
next arises, whether or not our countrymen will go 
on recklessly destroying an article of absolute neces- 
sity and immense daily consumption, without regard 
to a source of future supply? ‘The rapid destruction 
of our forests within the past few years is really 
appalling. The-State of New York, which, not many 
years since, exported great quantities of pine lumber, 
now obtains a supply for home consumption from 
abroad. The forests of Maine are said to be so com- 
pletely stripped, that scarcely a pine tree of old growth 
is to be seen. At the present rate of consumption, 
the pine woods of the Northwestern States are likely 
to be exhausted in less than twenty-five years. It 
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