160 FOREST TREES. 
quantities are employed in fencing the treeless plains 
of the Mississippi valley. The demand is increasing, 
and it is a matter worthy the serious consideration of 
all thinking men how the supply of an article of such 
prime necessity is to be continued. As fast as the 
government lands are offered for sale, the valuable 
tracts of Pine timber are monopolized by speculators, 
who, regardless of every consideration but immediate 
profit, hasten to pocket the proceeds. Intelligent 
Europeans regard with astonishment the reckless and 
almost wanton destruction of the trees in the forest, 
the loss by carelessness in the transportation, and the 
wastefulness in the manufacture. The concentration 
of the Pine forests in fewer hands must, of course, 
rapidly enhance the price of lumber. As has already 
been said, the Pine forests of the Northwestern States 
are likely to fail in less than twenty-five years; those 
of New York are wholly exhausted, and those of 
Maine nearly so. In both these States, Spruce and 
Hemlock are largely substituted, but even this 
resource must ere long fail, and the ravages of fire, 
and the influx of settlers will to a great extent check, 
if not wholly prevent, the reproduction of the forests. 
Fortunate will it be if the owners of the soil can be 
aroused to adopt an efficient system of forest planting 
in time to prevent the evils and privations sure to 
accompany a general scarcity of timber. 
Most of the more valuable kinds of Conifers will 
thrive upon thin aud unproductive soils, or in situa- 
tions too broken and rocky for cultivation. Thou- 
sands of farms in all parts of the country have more 
