10 BULLETIN 638, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



able to suppose that in the not distant future practically the entire 

 production of its forests will he needed for home consumption by the 

 constantly increasing population. Importations from any of these 

 sources, moreover, involve considerable charges for transportation, 

 with a corresponding increase in price to the consumer. 



It seems certain that in the long run the United States must rely 

 on its own resources to supply its needs for lumber, ties, paper, and 

 other wood products, as well as for naval stores and wood distilla- 

 tion products. It is equally certain, furthermore, that these supplies 

 should be produced as near the point of consumption as possible 

 through the full use of forest land wherever it occurs. Too little 

 attention has so far been paid to these fundamental truths. As a 

 result, lumber prices have increased in the cut-over regions, and the 

 pinch of inadequate supplies has already been felt in many localities. 



SPECULATION. 



IN STANDING TIMBEB. 



Speculation, both in standing timber and in cut-over lands, is 

 another serious evil that has attended the exploitation of the forests. 

 The subject is so big a one, however, as to make it impossible in a 

 bulletin such as this to do more than touch briefly on a few of its more 

 important aspects. 



Large bodies of mature timber have been acquired with no inten- 

 tion of utilizing them immediately, but with the idea of trading them 

 off as soon as possible at a substantial profit or of holding them for 

 a rise in price. As transportation facilities have been developed and 

 the country built up, there naturally has been a rapid rise in stump- 

 age values, particularly in the newer sections. In parts of the 

 Northwest, for example, the original price at which timber was 

 acquired from the Government has been multiplied in subsequent 

 transfers anywhere from ten to twenty times within the short space 

 of ten or fifteen years. Millions of acres of the finest timberlands 

 in the country passed every year from public to private ownership ; 

 hundreds of fortunes were made merely by buying and selling stump- 

 age; and the entire tendency was to promote timber speculation at 

 the expense of timber production. In a general way, although per- 

 haps not in such acute form, this has been the history of timber 

 ownership throughout the country. In fact, so rapidly have forest 

 properties, originally acquired at little or no expense, increased in 

 value that the lumber industry as a whole has looked for its profits 

 to timber ownership rather than to logging and milling — that is, 

 to the speculative rather than to the operative end of the business. 

 Only too frequently have speculative returns concealed actual losses 

 resulting from inefficiency of operation. 



