15 



The average age of the trees which are being felled for lumber this 

 year is not less than 150 j^ears. The lunibennan could not afford to 

 replace them were he blessed with the prospect of uneqfualed lon- 

 gevity, since such long investments are unprofitable for private 

 capital. In consequence there arises the need that the State and 

 National governments, which do not need to look for so high a rate 

 of interest as the private investor and which are concerned with the 

 l^romotion of the general welfare, shouhl assume the responsibility 

 of providing a future supply of timber. 



The forest area of the United States is sufficient, if rightly man- 

 aged, to produce eventually timber enough to supply every legitimate 

 need. There is no reason why it should not some day be brought 

 up to the point of yielding an annual increment of more than 30 

 cubic feet per acre, which, as previously said, would supply the quan- 

 tity of timber now consumed, and which if used economically will 

 be sufficient for a much increased population. The experience of 

 Germany well illustrates the possibilities along this line. The fol- 

 lowing quotations from an article by Dr. B. E. Fernow, in Forestry 

 and Irrigation for February, 1907, present the case clearly : 



One hundred and fifty years ago Germany found herself in very much the 

 same condition as regards her forest resources as we are to-day in the United 

 States — all accessible portions more or less culled, or in poor coppice, burnt 

 over, and damaged by cattle, the valuable virgin timber mostly confined to 

 distant and inaccessible locations. Sporadic attempts existed here and there at 

 protection, at regulation of the cut, at conservative lumbering, and still more 

 sporadic attempts at reforestation. 



Yet until the beginning of the nineteenth century reduction of supplies with- 

 out adequate reproduction proceeded, and around the year 1800 the wood 

 famine had become acute, giving rise to the same kind of agitation and litera- 

 ture which we have experienced, even to bringing in the catalpa and other 

 such small, rapid growers as the saviors of the nation. 



The severity of the timber shortage in Germany at that time was 

 temporarily relieved through increased production of coal and the 

 building of railroads into hitherto inaccessible forest regions. Then 

 came the vigorous organization of extensive forest reserves and the 

 adoption of a settled polic}^ of forest management, based upon the 

 principle of sustained yield, or the cutting of the increment only, 

 without lessening the wood capital. The results of this policy were, 

 in the words of Doctor Fernow, that — 



In Saxony the cut increased during the years 1820 to 1890 just 50 per cent, ami 

 up to 1904 has increased by another 5 per cent, namely, to 93 cubic feet per 

 acre, the increase through the whole period being at the rate of 0.5 per cent 

 annually. 



In Prussia the increase is still more pronounced. While in 1830 the cut was 

 20 cubic feet per acre, and in 1865 increased to only 24 cubic feet, in 1890 it 



[Cir. 97] 



