CHAPTER IV. 
DANGER OF TIMBER FAMINE. 
Convincing Proofs of the Approach of a Timber Famine. —Manufac- 
ture of Charcoal in New England, and Quantities of Wood An- 
nually Consumed thereby. —The Destruction of Forests on the 
Tittabawassee and Cass Rivers Illustrated. — The Immensity of 
Forest Destruction in Nevada.—A Prediction of Nevada’s Future. 
Ir any one doubts the danger of a timber famine in 
the United States at some future day, let him look at the 
destruction of trees in his own neighborhood. Where 
are the forests that sheltered our youth? Where are the 
big woods in which we hunted the red deer, the black 
and gray squirrel, and an occasional bear? Gone, gone, 
and all the game with them. I remember the furnaces 
of my own county, Centre, in Pennsylvania, how they 
never ceased until all the big woods were cut down and 
burned up into charcoal to make iron. 
A few years ago, in the towns of Canaan, Salisbury, 
Norfolk, Sharon, Cornwall, and Goshen, comprising the 
northwestern part of Litchfield County, Connecticut, and 
a small portion of Dutchess County, New York, and 
Berkshire County, Massachusetts, were no less than 
twelve iron furnaces for the manufacture of charcoal 
pig-iron, from iron dug within these districts. These fur- 
naces made about 3500 tons of pig-iron each per year, 
at a cost of about $40 per ton, or $1,680,000 for the 
whole. More than half this amount was paid for wood 
consumed in the shape of charcoal. To run these fur- 
naces one year it required that between four and five 
hundred acres of land should be stripped of the wood, 
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