84 TIMBER REQUIREMENTS 



insects, wanton destruction, and carelessness, by the 

 nineties of last century America began to awake to 

 the fact that even her vast forests, which sheha'3 re- 

 garded as inexhaustible, were reaching a stage when 

 her industries could no longer be supplied from them. 



The Americaij Nation, so quick at appreciating 

 economic conditions to their own advantage, were 

 slow to recognize their position. In fact, they were 

 incredulous — ^as incredulous on the subject that 

 their forests could ever give out as British pro- 

 prietors were that their own woods could ever be 

 made to pay. Roosevelt was the first President to 

 realise the position the country had drifted into, 

 and the fine American Forest Departmqit and the 

 conservancy policy now in force are due to his 

 energetic initiative. But the end of the century 

 saw America alive to the position into which she 

 had unthinkingly brought herself. She had eaten 

 her cake, or the greater part of it. Her requirements 

 in wood pulp alone (that eater of forest) were 

 enormous, and she recognized that she was no 

 longer self-supporting in that article, and would 

 soon not be so in many others. 



You may remember the controversy which 

 reigned in Canada in the early years of the present 

 century over granting a preferential tariff to America 

 in wood pulp. The agreement was not made, 

 luckily for us perhaps, but it was a fair warning to 

 us as to which way the wind is likely to blow both 

 in American arid Canadian. timber exports — ^in fact 

 the w%y the wind, economically speaking, must blow. 



Rememjjer, it is as essential to her great industries 



