TIMBER DEPLETION AND THE ANSWER, 



THE MAIN FACTS AS TO TIMBER DEPLETION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



THE FOREST RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES- 

 YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY. 



The original forests of the United States are estimated to have 

 covered 822 million acres and to have contained 5,200 billion board 

 feet of timber. Over two-thirds of this area has been culled, cut- 

 over, or burned. There are left to-day about 137 million acres of 

 virgin timber, 112 million acres of culled and second-growth timber 

 large enough for sawing, 133 million acres partially stocked with 

 smaller growth, and 81 million acres of devastated and practically 

 waste land. We have 463 million acres of forest land of all sorts 

 which contains about 2,214 billion feet of timber of merchantable 

 sizes. Three-fifths of the timber originally in the United States is 

 gone. 



THE RATE AT WHICH OUR FORESTS ARE BEING USED UP. 



The cutting and loss of merchantable timber consume about 56 

 billion board feet yearly. About 40 billion feet of this amount is cut 

 from the virgin forests still left, the rest from second growth. We 

 are even cutting into pulpwood, acid wood, and fuel 14 billion cubic 

 feet per year of material too small for sawing. All told we are 

 taking about 26 billion cubic feet of material out of our forests every 

 year and growing about 6 billion feet in them. We are cutting more 

 of every class of timber than we are growing. We are even using up 

 the trees too small for the sawmill but upon which our future lumber 

 supply depends three and one-half times as fast as they are being 

 produced, 



Our annual wood bill includes 40 billion feet of lumber, 87 million 

 hewed railroad ties, nearly 5| million cords of pulpwood, a third of 

 which is imported, and 110 million cords of fuel. This use of wood 

 can not be appreciably reduced without serious injury to the agri- 

 culture, the home building, and the manufactures of the United 

 States. The pressure of the war brought our per capita consump- 

 tion of timber down to 300 board feet yearly and the country has 

 suffered from it in the shortage of dwellings and the curtailed output 

 of many industries. Even with large allowances for the substitu- 

 tion of other materials, the United States will require at least 35 

 billion feet of lumber yearly, aside from enormous quantities of 

 wood pulp and other products of the forest. We can not cut our per 



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