19 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE VALUE OF FORESTS. 



Direct Value. — Go back as far as you like in the history of the world and 

 you will find that the forests have always played a very important part in the 

 national welfare of every country. The forests yield a number of products which, 

 before the dawn of civilisation, were indispensable to the tribes that inhabited 

 them. The negro in the tropical jungle of Africa, prehistoric man in the oak and 

 beech forests of the old world, the aboriginal in the eucalypt forests of Australia, 

 all lived on the products of the forests and on the game that they sheltered. As 

 man became civilised and began to outgrow his environment and to find a diffi- 

 culty in supplying himself with the necessities of life, he was gradually forced 

 to supplement the natural products with food, raiment, etc., grown under cultiva- 

 tion. He no longer relied on barks of trees and skins of wild animals, but he 

 set to work to domesticate animals which yielded him meat and skins and wool; 

 he grew cereals for his bread, and flax and cotton for weaving into cloth to cover 

 his body. 



The growth of civilisation, while causing a decrease in the use of some wild 

 raw products, also resulted in an increase in the use of other products, the chief 

 one being timber. As civilisation developed, the use of timber increased until a 

 scarcity of this essential commodity was felt in every land. The higher the 

 civilisation, the greater the industrial development, the greater the use of wood. 

 One of the most important uses to which wood has been put from the earliest of 

 times is fuel, and to-day, except in localities where coal is cheap, we see wood 

 fuel used. In Western Australia firewood still forms a very large part of the 

 output of our forests. Perth, for instance, consumes no less than 150,000 tons of 

 firewood a year, Greenbushes requires 15,120 tons a year for its tin mining 

 industry, but the largest amount of all is used by the mines of the Eastern Gold- 

 fields, which require between 500,000 and 600,000 tons a year for their boilers. In 

 1913-14 Western Australia produced about 450,000 tons of sawn wood. It will be 

 seen then that the gold mines actually used more wood than was sawn in all the 

 mills in the South-West. It must, of course, be said that the value of the sawn 

 wood is much greater than the value of the firew T ood. Fuel at the Kalgoorlie 

 mines is worth 15s. a ton, while a ton of sawn wood aboard a ship in Bunbury is 

 worth to-day at least £8. The importance of firewood supply both to the house- 

 holder and the factory or mine is often overlooked. Timber is the main product 

 and the humble firewood takes a second place, but without it there are many 

 industries that could not exist in Western Australia to-day. From a forestry 

 standpoint the importance of firewood is very great, as will be shown when we 

 come to deal with the cultural operations necessary to improve the jarrah and 

 karri forests. Suffice it to say here that it is only when the forester has a fuel 

 market to absorb the abundance of overmature trees, which are inevitably in the 

 majority in a wild forest, and the crowns and branches, that he can hope to 

 convert those wild forests into cultivated or normal forests. 



Timber. — "From the cradle to the coffin we are surrounded by wood," or, as 

 Evelyn wrote in 1664: — 



"Since it is certain and demonstrable that all arts and artisans whatsoever must 

 fail and cease if there were no timber and wood in a nation (for lie that shall take his 

 pen and begin to set down what art, mystery or trade belonging any way to human life, 

 could be maintained and exercised without wood, will quickly find that I speak no 

 paradox), I say when this shall be well considered, it will appear that we had better 

 be without gold than without timber. ' '" 



