14 
stroyed one-fifth of the forests worked. The loss in the mill is 
from one-third to two-thirds of the timber sawed. The loss in 
the mill product through seasoning and fitting for use is from 
one-seventh to one-fourth. Great damage is done by insects to 
forests and forest products. An average of only 320 feet of 
lumber is used for each 1,000 feet which stood in the forest. 
WHERE WE STAND. 
We take from our forests each year, not counting the loss by 
fire, three and one-half times their yearly grow^th. We take 40 
cubic feet per acre for each 12 cubic feet grown ; we take 260 
cubic feet per capita, while Germany uses 37 cubic feet and 
France 25 cubic feet. 
We invite by overtaxation the misuse of our forests. We 
should plant, to protect farms from wind and to make stripped 
or treeless lands productive, an area larger than that of Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio, and West Virginia combined. But so far, lands 
successfully planted to trees make a total area smaller than 
Rhode Island. And year by year, through careless cutting and 
fires, we lower the capacity of existing forests to produce their 
like again, or totally destroy them. 
The conditions of the world supply of timber makes us already 
dependent upon what we produce. We send out of our country 
one and one-half times as much timber as we bring in. Except 
for finishing woods, relatively insignificant in Cjuantity, we must 
grow our own supply oi go without. 
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE. 
We should stop forest fires. By careful logging we should both 
reduce waste and leave cut-over lands productive. We should 
make the timber logged go further by preservative treatment and 
by avoiding needless loss in the woods, the mill, the factory, and 
in use. We should plant up those lands now treeless which will 
be most useful under forest. We should so adjust taxation that 
cut-over lands can be held for a second crop. We should recog- 
nize that it costs to grow timber as w,ell as to log and saw it. 
We should continue and perfect, by State and nation, the 
preservation by use of forests publicly owned ; and we should 
extend it to other mountain forests more valuable for the perma- 
nent benefit of the many than for the temporary profit of a few. 
For each million acres of forest in public ownership over 4,000,- 
000 are privately owned. The conservation of public forests is 
the smaller task before the nation and the States. The larger 
task is to induce private forest own^^rs, which means 3,000,000 
men, to take care of what they have, and to teach wood users, 
which means every one, how, not to waste. 
If these things are done, they will conserve our streams as well 
as our forests. If they are not done, the usefulness of our 
streams will decrease no less than the usefulness of our forests. 
