18 



M. C. MOORE, 



Secretary National Slack Cooperage Manufacturers' Association. 



* * * I am sorry to say, because I believe that it ought not to be 

 so, that American manufacturers of himber and cooperage stock are, 

 as a rule, looking no farther ahead than the length of their own lives 

 or their own active business careers, as far as the consumption of 

 timber is concerned. * * * How are we going to induce the man- 

 ufacturer to look at this thing differently? * * * There is one 

 fact which seems to me generally encouraging to the application of 

 the principles of forestry. This is that hardwood tracts which 

 were cut over by manufacturers a few years since and deserted as 

 exhausted are now being logged again. • 



GEORGE W. HOTCHKISS, 



Secr'etary Illinois liumber Dealers' Association. 



* * * It has been claimed that the lumber industry is the fourth 

 in rank of the Nation. I claim that it is the first in rank, as I figure 

 that in the past one hundred years a moderate estimate gives us from 

 2,000 billion to 2,500 billion feet as the product of the forests of 

 the Nation, which I estimate to be of a financial value equal to from 

 one-quarter to one-third of the estimated wealth of the Nation. * * * 

 From these vast figures will perhaps be realized the importance of the 

 forests of the Nation to its development, for through them, and them 

 only, has been made possible the great development of the West — of 

 the prairie States — as well as of the East. * * * 



GEORGE K. SMITH, 

 Secretary National Lumber Manufacturers' Association. 



* ♦ * The importance attached to statistics in other commodi- 

 ties is well illustrated by the annual report of the Statistician of the 

 Department of Agriculture for the fiscal year 1903, published in 

 the December issue of the Crop Reporter. The fact that our Gov- 

 ernment has made the Census Bureau continuous in its organization 

 and reduced the period of census returns from once in ten years to 

 once in five A^ears is another evidence of the importance of up-to-date 

 statistics. * * * Such gatherings as this congress tend to hasten 

 the day w^hen the manufacturers of lumber and owners of stumpage 

 will work closer together and determine annually how rapidly our 

 forest resources are diminishing, and thus realize more and more the 

 importance of statistics in the lumber industry. 



HOWARD ELLIOTT, 



President Northern Pacific Railway. 



* * * To have good tracks the railroads must have some form 

 of support under the rails, and the present practice is a wooden tie. 



