23 



MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTS. 



Under this heading are included such forest products as maple 

 sugar and sirup, timber which is exported in the log, and wood used 

 for distillation, the annual value of which, all together, is easily 

 $10,000,000. More than 1,280,000 cords of wood were used for 

 distillation in 1907. With the exception of about 60,000 cords of 

 pine, this wood consisted of hardwoods, chiefly birch, beech, and 

 maple. No detailed information is available upon either the kind 

 or quantity of logs exported, though the reports of the Bureau of 

 Statistics, Department of Commerce and Labor, show their value to 

 be more than $3,000,000. Probably more walnut than any other 

 timber is exported in this form. 



THE FUTURE SUPPLY. 



As is shown in the preceding pages, the total yearly drain upon 

 our forests, not counting losses from fire, storms, and insects, is 

 some 20 billion cubic feet. Our present forest area of 550 million 

 acres may be roughly estimated to consist of 200 million acres of 

 mature forests, in which the annual growth is balanced by death 

 and decay, of 250 million acres partially cut or burned over, on 

 which, with reasonable care, there is sufficient young growth to 

 produce in the course of time a merchantable, but not a full crop 

 of timber, and 100 million acres of more severely cut and burned 

 over forests, on which there is not sufficient young growth to pro- 

 duce another crop of much value. 



Taken as a whole, the annual growth of our forests under these 

 conditions does not exceed 12 cubic feet per acre, a total of less 

 than 7 billion cubic feet. That is, we are cutting our forests three 

 times as fast as they are growing. There is menace in the contin- 

 uance of such conditions. While we might never reach absolute 

 timber exhaustion, the unrestricted exploitation of our forests in 

 the past has already had serious effects, and it will have much worse 

 if it is allowed to continue unchecked. White pine, for instance, 

 which was once considered inexhaustible, has fallen off 70 per cent 

 in cut since 1890, and more than 45 per cent since 1900. The cut 

 of oak, our most valuable hardwood lumber, has decreased 16 per 

 cent since 1900, and that of yellow poplar 22 per cent. The same 

 story will be told of other woods if they are not conserved. 



The fact that timber has been cheap and abundant has made us 

 careless of its production and reckless in its use. We take 250 cubic 

 feet of wood per capita annually from our forests, while Germany 

 uses only 37 cubic feet, and France but 25. On the other hand, 



[CIr. 166] 



