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til recently an unrestricted right to kill as much game and to catch as 
many fish as any one could. The General Government has gone even 
further ; it investigates the habits and history of the clam, the oyster, 
and the lobster, with the purpose of supplying information which will 
promote their successful and profitable cultivation. It has undertaken 
the business of stocking the rivers and lakes, even the shore waters of 
the ocean, with fish. By these and other means it seeks to preserve the 
sources of natural wealth from the devastations of selfish persons or 
to render them more valuable. | 
Our forests, on the other hand, from which we are drawing a larger 
amount in natural wealth than from any other source of supply, or in- 
deed from all other sources together, we have so far done practically 
nothing either to protect or to cultivate. While thisseems strange when 
we contemplate the forests, as we have done, merely as a source of raw 
material for our mechanical industries, it will seem the more remarkable 
when we consider how much more important the forests are on other 
and widely different accounts. Although they are the chief source from 
which we draw all our building materials, yet even if they should cease 
to yield sufficient to satisfy our wants in this direction, we could perhaps 
secure enough for this purpese for generations to come from the untold 
and untouched wealth of other countries, though at a vastly increased 
cost. We would resort, morever, in the face of a growing scarcity of 
timber, to other materials for our building, such as brick, stone, iron, 
and other metals. The value of the product of lumber was, for the 
census year, $233,268,000. This would be transferred, of course, to for- 
eign countries, if the supply of lumber should give out in this country, 
but it might at least be possibile to get as much lumber as we desired 
_ from outside sources by restricting our demands within narrow bounds. 
The fuel supply of the country would, of course, be very much di- 
minished if our forests were cut off and none others should take their 
place. Inthe census year, three-fifths of the people of the United States 
used wood as the ordinary domestic fuel, and the total value of wood 
used for fuel purposes amounted to nearly $325,000,000. At the same 
time, if wood should get scarce other material could be found to take 
its place as fuel. Coaland peat, natural gas, petroleum, and many other 
and perhaps some now unknown substances, might be substituted in 
place of the forest products for fuel. 
Other articles for which wood is in demand, among which as most im- 
portant may be mentioned fence posts and fencing material, handles, 
wheel-stock, wood pulp, baskets, boxes, etc., might all be supplied by 
other material, though at a considerable sacrifice in cheapness and, in 
some cases, convenience. } 
It is to be said, however, in this connection, that in spite of the in- 
ventions or application of substitutes for wood, the demand for the lat- 
ter shows no tendency to decrease in an advancing community, since 
the growth of population and the ever-multiplying wants of an expand- 
