ARTIFICIAL PRESERVATION OF TIMBER. 347 



Since making this statement. Dr. Fernow has predicted the complete 

 exhaustion of America's timber supply within thirty years, providing the 

 present rate of consumption is maintained. 



From these deductions it is evident that the problem of conserving 

 our timber supply, or at least putting the ultimate destruction of our 

 forests - fax into the future as possible, is one which not only interests, 

 in a general way, the entire population of the country, but is especially 

 important to all such as are concerned, in any way, with the manufacture 

 or use of lumber, timber and wood, and of the various products of the 

 latter; and particularly to the engineer and architect, the carpenter and 

 builder, the manufacturer, lumberman, and mill owner, the newspaper 

 and book publisher, and all other consumers of wood pulp and paper. 



Within the past twenty years efforts, more or less serious, have been 

 made to introduce into this country systems of forestry which would help 

 to conserve the supply; but it may be said that, in general, "scientific 

 forestry," so called, has, up to the present, accomplished, in America, 

 little more than the elevation of " the service " to the dignity of a profession, 

 and the awakening of a wide-spread public interest in the subject. 



Importance of Artificial Preservation 



Fortunately, however, while little progress has been made in the 

 direction of systematic or economic lumbering, or of provision for the 

 existence of future forest trees to supply the demand for wood in years 

 to come, there have been introduced and developed in this country, within 

 the past generation, several methods for arresting the decay of sawn lumber 

 and piles, and for preventing the attacks of the various marine and land 

 wood-borers. In so far as, by preserving from attack and preventing 

 the decay of wood, they lengthen the life of a stick of timber, and thereby 

 lessen the number of sticks required to keep a structure in repair, the 

 individuals and corporations engaged in experimenting with and developing 

 these preservative processes, are not only opening the wav for a great 

 saving of money and labor in the maintenance of nearly all classes of 

 structures, but are contributing in a most important manner to materially 

 check the annihilation of our forests, and to stimulate the development 



