18 THE FORESTS OF THE UNITED STATES: THEIR USE. 
can yield permanently. No economic reason fully explains the dif- 
ference between the price of lumber grown in the United States and 
of lumber grown in Europe. Difference in the density of population 
explains it only in part. But neither that nor the relation of supply 
to demand is the chief cause. It lies in our failure to realize that if 
we are to grow timber continuously to meet our needs its value must 
be reckoned by the cost of growing it as well as by the cost of logging 
and manufacture. Stumpage prices in the United States average less 
than one-fifth of the price of lumber at the mill. The value of any- 
thing which is needed is at least what it will cost to grow it again. 
We pay generally less for lumber than it is worth, with a slight 
present gain to ourselves individually, and by so doing we discour- 
age the right use of the forest and greatly increase the cost of lum- 
ber to ourselves later on, and to those who come after us. We must 
recognize the actual value of timber now or pay an excessive price for 
it in the future, and we have carried destruction so far that we shall 
probably have to do both. 
CONSERVATIVE TURPENTINING. 
An important source of waste is boxing small trees, which yield 
little turpentine and soon die. If left standing, these small trees 
would make lumber and pay well. Another source of waste is boxing 
larger trees so deeply that they die in a few years or are blown down, 
while in the meantime the deep wound made in boxing invites fire. 
Improved methods of turpentining yield 30 per cent more turpentine 
and better turpentine, do not invite windfall, and lessen injury 
from fire. Under these systems, combined with other economies 
possible, a forest can probably be worked for fifteen to twenty years, 
and made to yield much more turpentine, with small injury to the 
merchantable timber. 
If improved methods of turpentining are given general use in long- 
leaf pine forests and in the working of other southern and western 
pines, they will mean both a permanent naval-stores industry, a higher 
profit to turpentiners, and an important gain in the continuous timber 
yield of our forests. 
CONSERVATIVE LOGGING. 
Through careless and destructive logging on private forest lands, 
an average of 25 per cent of the merchantable timber is left standing, 
or otherwise wasted in the woods. On National Forests, from which 
has been sold yearly for the last three years an average of about 
250,000,000 board feet of timber, the total waste in logging is about 
10 per cent. This timber was sold at prices no lower than those paid 
[Cir. 171] 
