9 
food, but it gave us the first means of using our mineral resources, and 
even now 600,000 tons of the iron product depend upon charcoal. Not 
only does ie wood in its natural form serve our needs, but our ingenn- 
ity has invented methods by which we can transform it into all sorts of 
useful materials, like cellulose, paper, and even silk, while lately it has 
become possible to prepare from the brushwood a feed for cattle more 
putritious than straw and equal to hay. 
By distillation of the wood numerous new products are derived from 
it, like alcohol, ac etie acid, gas, vanillin, ete., and if we recall that the 
bark yields indis pensable tanning material, that resin and tar to pitch 
our vessels, and turpentine, sassafras oil, and quinine to cure our ills, 
rubber and cork for a great variety of uses, maple sugar and cinnamon 
to flavor our food, all are derived from the forest, it will be admitted 
that an enumeration of the use of forest products would be almost end- 
less. And in spite of the discovery of substitutes for many uses the 
application of wood is growing everywhere in direction as well as in 
quantity. 
While this direct usefulness of the forest is patent to everyone, there 
are to be noted some more hidden indirect phases of utility as impor- 
tant as those which are presented by its material. 
The forest, with its decaying vegetation, has furnished the fertility of 
our fields and waters, for the mineral soil without the humus or vege- 
table mold would never have produced food enough for mankind. 
Another inealeulable benefit of the forest cover has impressed itself 
upon the minds of the observing and thinking portion of mankind only 
comparatively recently, namely, the part which the forest plays in the 
great economy of nature, the recognition of which led the most eminent 
naturalist and philosopher, A. von Humboldt, to exclaim: ‘‘ How foolish 
do men appear, destroying the forest cover without regard to conse- 
quences, for thereby they rob themselves of wood and water.” 
It is only within a century or so that the value of a forest cover as 
a protection against destructive natural forces and as a regulator of 
favorable cultural conditions, by its influence upon climatic conditions, 
and upon the flow of water, has been recognized and proved. 
Whatever may in general remain unexplained or unproved in regard 
to these influences of the forest, it is well established by observation, 
experience, and experiment that under certain conditions of soil, topog- 
raphy, and climate these influences not only exist, but are of consider- 
able importance in preventing the washing and shifting of the soil, reg- 
ulating the surface and subterranean drainage of waters, breaking the 
force of and tempering hot and cold winds, and thus acting as a reg- 
ulator of cultural conditions. 
We see, then, that the significance of the forest is twofold. For the 
private interest it is, in the first place, only a source of profitable prod- 
ucts; the more profit it affords the more fully does it satisfy this in- 
terest. | 
