FOREST PRESERVATION AND NATIONAL PROSPERITY. 7 



absolute increase in the amount of wood used. More wood is used 

 than ever before in our history. Thus, the consumption of wood in 

 shipbuilding is far larger than it was before the discovery of the 

 art of building iron ships, because vastly more ships are built. 

 Larger supplies of building lumber are required, directly or indi- 

 rectly, for use in the construction of the brick and steel and stone 

 structures of great modern cities than were consumed b}^ the compara- 

 tively few and comparatively small wooden buildings in the earlier 

 stages of these same cities. It is as sure as anything can be that 

 we will see in the future a steadily increasing demand for wood in 

 our manufacturing industries. 



There is one point I want to speak about in addition to the uses of 

 the forest to which I have already alluded. Those of us who have 

 lived on the Great Plains, who are acquainted with the conditions in 

 parts of Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas, know that 

 wood forms an immensely portentous element in helping the farmer 

 on those plains battle against his worst enemy — wind. The use of 

 forests as windbreaks out on the plains, where the tree does not grow 

 unless man helps it, is of enormous importance. 



When wood, dead or alive, is demanded in so many ways, and when 

 this demand will undoubtedly increase, it is a fair question, then, 

 whether the vast demands of the future upon our forests are likely 

 to be met. You are mighty poor Americans if your care for the well- 

 being of this country is limited to hoping that that well-being will 

 last out your own generation. No man here or elsewhere is entitled 

 to call himself a decent citizen if he does not try to do his part 

 toward seeing that our national policies are shaped for the advantage 

 of our children and our children's children. Our country, we have 

 faith to believe, is only at the beginning of its growth. Unless the 

 forests of the United States can be made ready to meet the vast 

 demands which this growth will inevitably bring, commercial disas- 

 ter, that means disaster to the whole country, is inevitable. If 

 the present rate of forest destruction is allowed to continue, with 

 nothing to offset it, a timber famine in the future is inevitable. Fire, 

 wasteful and destructive forms of lumbering, and the legitimate use, 

 taken together, are destroying our forest resources far more rapidly 

 than they are being replaced. It is difficult to imagine what such a 

 timber famine would mean to our resources. And the period of 

 recovery from the injuries which a timber famine would entail would 

 be measured by the slow growth of the trees themselves. Remember 

 that you can prevent such a timber famine occurring, by wise action 

 taken in time ; but once the famine occurs, there is no possible way of 

 hurrying the growth of the trees necessary to relieve it. 



* * * Whatever it may be possible for the Government to accom- 

 plish, its work must ultimately fail unless your interest and support 



