CHAPTEIv VI 



OUE SUPPLIES OF WOOD. 



Iisr spite of the substitution of iron or other substances for wood 

 in shipbuilding and other industries, with the increasing numbers 

 of civiHzed man the consumption of wood increases at such a rate 

 as to demand serious attention. 



The clearing of forest land for the purposes of agriculture has 

 been most recklessly carried out, especially during the last century 

 in the United States and in Canada, much of the wood being wasted. 

 Where, too, the timber has been cut for use, this has in general 

 been done so completely without any provision for the regenera- 

 tion of the forest-lands as to lead to their extinction. The floods 

 and famines of China, the waste of the agricultural soil in Ceylon, 

 the barrenness of Mesopotamia, Syria, Asia Minor, and Cyprus, the 

 drying up of the springs and deterioration of the cHmate in South 

 Africa, Mauritius, Turkey, and Spain have been attributed mainly 

 to wholesale destruction of forest. The felling of the woods on 

 the Atlantic coast of Denmark has exposed the country to sharp 

 sea winds and drifting sand, forming lagoons and bogs and causing 

 a marked deterioration of the cHmate : the disafforesting of the 

 Apennines during the last two centuries has much increased the 

 violence of the mountain-torrents ; and even in Russia, which has 

 not only the largest area of forest of any European state, but the 

 largest percentage of her whole area under forest, a decrease 

 in the waters of the Volga has been attributed to the same 

 cause. 



Whilst all woodland has disappeared from some lands, special 

 species are threatened with extinction in others. The pine forests 

 of Tunis have disappeared during the last hundred years : some 

 districts of Australia already experience a scarcity of fire-wood 

 and of mine-props : until Government regulations put a stop to the 

 felling of saplings to act as rollers in transporting the larger logs, 

 the valuable Greenheart of Demerara was in imminent danger of 

 extinction ; and the enormous drain upon the supply of White Pine 

 {Pinus Strobus) is a grave danger in North America. 



