Dy MISC. PUBLICATION 26, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
wooden poles. The paper bags in which we wrap our groceries are 
made from wood, our newspapers are printed on paper made from 
wood fiber, and the ink used in printing them contains rosin from 
pine trees. In short, every important animal, vegetable, or mineral 
product consumed by the American people requires wood somewhere 
in the processes of production, distribution, or utilization. (Fig. 1.) 
WOOD IS ESSENTIAL TO PROGRESS 
Of course, it is physically possible to do without timber. It is 
also possible to do without wheat, beef, coal, gasoline, cotton, or 
steel. For wheat. rice may be substituted; for beef, mutton; hydro- 
electric plants or solar energy may replace coal as a source of heat 
and power; instead of gasoline we may run our cars with alcohol; 
silk or linen may be substituted for cotton; some combination of 
aluminum might conceivably take the place of steel. 
It is extremely unlikely, however, that any of these substitutions 
will be made so long as it is possible to get the raw materials upon 
which we now depend. From the beginning of history, progress 
in material welfare and betterments in standards of hving have of 
necessity been conditioned upon the utilization of an increasing 
volume and variety of raw materials. Every addition to the number 
of substances that can be used. and every new use to which each 
material can be put, marks a step forward. Even to maintain exist- 
ing standards as the world’s population increases in density, it 
becomes more and more necessary to utilize all the materials that 
nature provides. There is no record of an important material be- 
coming obsolete, no matter how many substitutes may have been 
found for specific uses. 
There are peoples, it is true, whose consumption of wood is so small 
that they may be said practically to do without. They are either 
peoples in a primitive stage of development who use very little, even 
though they can get it in “abundance, or peoples who are able to get 
only “extremely inadequate quantities. Examples of the first class 
are the native tribes of central Africa, the Malay Archipelago, and 
the Amazon Basin, who require very little in the way of housing, 
almost no fuel, and few wooden articles except primitive tools, 
weapons, and canoes. Examples of the second class are peoples 
living in countries that were densely settled and in an advanced 
stage of culture before the Christian era, and whose forests were 
practically all destroyed many centuries ago. Such countries are 
portions of Persia, Asia Minor, Turkestan, “India, and China. In 
all of these, the history of forest destruction has been much the 
same, and its effects upon the economic and social welfare of the 
peoples have been strikingly similar. 
THE EXAMPLE OF CHINA 
A classic example of a people suffering from extreme timber 
shortage is furnished by northern China. Abundantly provided 
with forests some 2, 500 years ago, the population increased rapidly 
and cut timber as it was needed, wastetully and without thought 
for the future. The Government seldom or never interfered in 
whatever the people were pleased to do, so long as their actions did 
not endanger the peace of the country. Land clearing, wasteful 
