50 



THE DESTRUCTIVE AGENTS OF FORESTS. 



duce all that is needed at home of grains, fruits and vegetables, 

 and much besides, provided it is intelligently farmed. 



It is not to be regretted that the good agricultural lands " 

 have been cleared. The state could never have had an exist- 

 ence without such improvement. The fertile land, it is true, 

 contained the finest timber in the largest quantities, but much 

 of it was cleared in an early day when logs and lumber could 

 not be sold at any price. Their owners would have been glad 

 of a chance to give them away. The destruction of timber un- 

 der such circumstances cannot fairly be considered as a waste. 

 "The farmer needed the land and no one wanted the timber.*' 

 Room had to be made for buildings and the growing of farm 

 crops or settlement would, of course, have been impossible. 

 After the pioneer had selected a building site the next thing m 

 order was to cut down trees; and every acre that was added to 

 the opening meant the felling of thousands of feet of timber. 

 A little of this timber only could be used. Selected logs were 

 used for the walls of the house; others were split into punch- 

 eons and boards for floor and roof ; and some were used for fuel, 

 for fencing, and for other domestic purposes. All the rest was 

 rolled into heaps and burned. 



Just how much timber has been destroyed by the farmers 

 of the state will never be known, and it is certain that we would 

 be little better off if exact data regarding this were obtainable. 

 In the light of the present high prices of lumber, however, the 

 subject of this early destruction becomes an interesting one. 

 There are persons in almost every community who can refer to 

 a time easily within their recollection when walnut and poplar 

 trees, which would now be worth hundreds of dollars, were used 

 for making fences or were burned and their ashes scattered to 

 enrich the land. 



On the supposition that the forests of West Virginia 120 

 years ago contained 150 billion feet of timber, and that an equal 

 amount had been added by growth since that time, the Report 

 of the West Virginia Conservation Commission gives the follow- 

 ing approximate figures to show how much timber remained in 

 1908 and what had become of the balance : 



