for timber is increasing out of all pro- 
ortion to the supply, and this means 
that the timber famine which is already 
within striking distance of our own 
country, is destined soon to be literally 
and absolutely world-wide. On _ this 
point I have already compiled 
a good deal of evidence in my 
earlier articles; but to drive the argu- 
ment home I must refer once more to 
the condition of the two countries 
which were endowed by Nature with 
forests more bounteously than any other 
land—the United States and Canada. 
Of the rapid disappearance of timber 
in the United States, I have already 
spoken at length, but I venture to add a 
little further corroborative testimony. 
Mr. M. Seckendorff tells us, “We are now 
consuming our forests at the rate of 
about 45 square miles per day. We take 
from them, not counting the loss by fire, 
three and a-half times their yearly 
growtn. We take 40 cubic feet per acve 
for each 12 cubic feet grown.” For those 
who like to take their statistics sea- 
soned with picturesque facts, I submit 
the following: “Secretary Will, of the 
American Forestry Association, has eal- 
culated that we consume each year 
enough timber to floor the entire State of 
Delaware; enough cooperage stock to 
build a rick four feet wide and four 
feet high extending from New York city 
to Colorado; enough firewood to make a 
one mile cube; and enough railway ties 
to build a railroad around the globe, 
with a side track across the Atlantic.” 
To descend to figures again, the total 
yearly growth of the American forests 
is less than seven billion cubic feet. “We 
take from our forests yearly,” says Mr. 
Seckendorff, ‘twenty-three billion cubic 
feet. Each year, therefore, we consume 
sixteen billion cubic feet more than ‘can 
be replaced ‘by Nature itself. In short, 
We are living on our capital. As forest 
fires and other destructive agencies, how- 
ever, seem quite certain to off-set new 
growth, the end of our forests, unless 
present tendencies are checked, is indi- 
cated in from 20 to 30 years.” In a 
39 
similar strain Mr. R. Cronau points out 
that the forest land of the United States 
has been reduced from 62 to 28 per cent 
of the total area. Even if the Ameri- 
cans do not increase the rate of con- 
sumption, their timber supply cannot 
last more than from 30 to 40 years. 
But Mr. Cronau thinks it likely that 
the consumption at the normal rate of 
increase will practically annihilate the 
American stock of timber 
14 to 20 years. 
within from 
Thus he concludes that 
the Americans are dangerously near a 
timber famine, “that will strike at the. 
very foundation of some of the country’s 
most important industries” 
WHAT WILL AMERICA DO? 
Wihat such a famine would mean to 
the industries, and therefore to the 
workers, of a great commercial country 
like America, it is very difficult to con- 
ceive. The timber trade—the fourth in 
rank of the American staple industries— 
pays about £30,000,000 a year in wages, 
and employs about 2,000,000 people. The 
timber utilised by the railroads for their 
sleepers represents, with renewals, an in- 
vestment of more than £60,000,000. The 
mines use up 400,000,000 cubic feet of 
timber every year. The anthracite 
mines alone consume a cubic foot of tim- 
ber for every ton of coal brought to the 
surface. In one great copper mine alone 
25 feet of Oregon pine take the place 
of every ton of ore extracted. 
To descend to relatively unimportant 
industries, it may be enough to point 
out that the single item of matches 
means the destruction of 10,000 acres 
of forest every year, The consumption 
of timber for the manufacture of paper- 
pulp igs another form of the demand for 
timber that has in recent years in 
America reached almost appalling dimen- 
sions. Mr. Whipple, the Forest Com- 
missioner for New York State, has lately 
calculated that the American newspapers 
consume every year the equivalent of 
two billion feet of timber in the form 
of pulp. The average Sunday edition 
of the New York “World” requires 
just about 30 acres of timber to furnish 
