42 



how they can do it, and the benefit from doing it. This is a work 

 which can not all be done at once, nor all in one way. Agricul- 

 tural societies, granges, farm journals, and lecturers have been 

 doing good work educating farmers in better ways of farming. 

 In exactly the same way and by precisely the same means can 

 education in practical forestry be brought to the owners of land. 

 No agency more powerful in spreading practical information 

 among the people can be found than the newspapers. That means 

 the grown-up people, not the children who attend public schools. 

 Lecturers and the writers of books are doing much in their lines ; 

 but when it comes to the practical affairs of life, the daily ques- 

 tions of living and making a living, of getting and exchanging 

 ideas, of finding, explaining, and using better ways of doing work, 

 the newspaper that goes into the boxes along the rural routes, is 

 the power behind the throne of the country people. 



Having referred to some of the things that ought to be done 

 and to some of the methods of doing them, it is proper to allude 

 briefly to the material available, and to its present condition. 



A century and a half ago the area now covered by West Vir- 

 ginia had nearly 16 million acres of forest, and perhaps 150 bill- 

 ion feet of timber. It now has less than 10 million acres and 

 about 30 billion feet. The wooded area has shrunk one-third 

 while the quantity of timber has decreased four-fifths. This means 

 that the woods are being thinned all over, and are not suffering 

 much from the inroads of clearings for farming purposes. If the 

 lands were adapted to agriculture, and were being cleared for 

 that purpose, we could strain a point to let the forests go, be- 

 cause agriculture is the highest use to which lands can be put. 

 But comparatively little of the remaining wooded land in the 

 State is fit for the plow. It is too poor, too rough, or too steep. II 

 ought to be kept in timber. One-half of West Virginia can never 

 be and ought never be put to tillage. The other half is fit for 

 farming and grazing and ought to be so used. 



The standing timber in the State will last 25 or 30 years at the 

 present rate of cutting. That leaves out of account what will 

 grow in the meantime and what fires will burn. Both of these 

 quantities are uncertain. But there is little uncertainty as to 

 what the quantity of growth wiU be if fires are to continue. There 

 will be none worth speaking of. The annual destruction by fires 

 now equals, if it does not exceed, the annual growth. There is no 



