American Poorest Congre;ss ^65 



enterprising owners of gum timber tracts, bought as 

 cheaply as elm was twenty years ago, are trying to 

 persuade the cooper to forsake elm and accept gum, 

 and in this praiseworthy undertaking the Bureau of 

 Forestry can render efficient aid by demonstrating how 

 gum may be most effectively utilized, and wastefulness 

 discouraged ; and now is the time that this work should 

 be undertaken. One of my contemporaries says that 

 "it is the traditional policy of consumers of lumber and 

 timber to ignore the possibility of the exhaustion of the 

 timber supply, and invariably they fail to realize that 

 fact until it has actually taken place." That suggestion 

 fits my cooperage friends exactly. Twenty-five years 

 ago elm and oak were as plentiful in the Northern 

 States as gum and oak are in the Southern States now, 

 and while that condition exists the campaign looking 

 to conservation of the supply should be entered upon 

 vigorously and determinedly, while the campaign for 

 reforestation of the denuded lands of the North should 

 also be organized and pressed with earnestness. 



With all the pessimistic sentiment surrounding this 

 question of depleted timber supply, however, there 

 comes to me one ray of light, and this leads me to the 

 belief that the situation may not be quite as black as it 

 is painted. Looking back into the files of my paper 

 of eighteen and twenty years ago, I note news items 

 in which it is stated that this manufacturer of staves 

 and that manufacturer of heading, located in portions 

 of Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio, "are 

 seeking new locations, because the timber supply is 

 exhausted." The strange part of it is, in looking over 

 current issues I find that now, twenty years after, the 

 same manufacturers are pegging away in the same 

 place. The explanation of this is found in the axiom 

 that "Necessity knows no law." These manufacturers 



