18 



THE UTILITY OF FORESTS. 



is safe to say that nothing has ever been found or ever will be 

 fonnd that can take its place for every purpose. With all the 

 efforts that are being made to discover satisfactory substitutes, 

 and in spite of the present extensive use of cement, bricks, and 

 metals, the consumption of wood in England, where practically 

 all the lumber is imported, is increasing at the rate of 5 per 

 cent per annum, and in the United States and France at the rate 

 of 10 per cent per annum. 



Judging from the amount of wood consumed in the United 

 States it is a greater necessity here than in any other civilized 

 country. Our annual wood consumption is not far from 23 bil- 

 lion cubic feet. This is more than 250 cubic feet per capita. 

 Some authorities place it at 100 cubic feet above this- But even 

 at the smaller figure, this country easily stands at the head of 

 the list- Germany, with its magnificent and well-tended forests, 

 manages to get along with about 63 cubic feet per capita annu- 

 ally ; and some other countries with much less than this. But no 

 country has been able to do without it entirely. 



West Virginia comes in for her full share of extravagance 

 in the use of wood, and would feel most keenly the effects ot a 

 shortage. There is enough lumber sawed in the state each year 

 to supply every resident man, woman and child with a thousand 

 feet, or enough to build a board walk 200 feet wide around the 

 1,170 miles of the state's boundary line, with plenty to spare. 

 If we add to this the enormous amounts consumed as fuel, 

 and cut for poles, posts, fence-rails, cross-ties, staves, tan-bark, 

 mine timbers, pulp wood, etc., for which we have no definite rec- 

 ord, together with all that is wasted in lumber operations, and 

 all that is burned by forest fires, we can safely state that West 

 Virginia can make no claim for great economy at present, and 

 we can begin to see that wood must be one of our most in- 

 dispensable commodities. 



Many of the commonest and most necessary things are most 

 easily forgotten and least appreciated. We think of air and 

 water when we are deprived of them. Wood has been almost 

 as common as air or water and it has been used as if it were just 

 as inexhaustible. Now, when the supply begins to wane, we ca,ii 



