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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 i^rofitable 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 this seems 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 sufiicient to satisfy our wants in this direction, we could perhaps 

 secure enough for this purpose for generations to come from the untold 

 and untouched w^ealth 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, $233,208,000. This would be transferred, of course, to for- 

 eign countries, if the supply of lumber should give out in this countr^^, 

 but it might at least be possible 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. In the 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 i^urposes 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. Coal and 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 m 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- 



