of timber annually. The greater sources 
of supply for these countries are Nor- 
thern Europe, America, and to a small 
extent New Zealand. But the enormous 
pine forests of Northern Europe are now 
almost denuded. New Zealand has 
30,000,000,000 feet of timber still avail- 
able, but it is diminishing at the rate 
of 430,000,000 feet a year. And America, 
comparatively speaking, is no better off. 
Throughout the United States the total 
quantity of marketable timber in 1906, 
according to the departmental calcula- 
tions, was 2,000,000,000,000 superficial 
feet. But America has 21,000 sawmills 
at work, which are cutting the enormous 
quantity of 37,500,000,000 feet per annum. 
it is obvious, therefore, the “Age” con- 
cludes, “that the world’s timber outlook 
is very serious, and a shortage of sup- 
plies within the next couple of decades 
appears to be inevitable.” 
THE COMING CRISIS. 
“T may supplement these facts with 
a. few further extracts from the article 
on “The Coming Timber Famine,” 
by Mr. J. :H. . Young, ‘to. which 
I have already referred : — ‘‘ The 
tremendous strain upon Russia’s timber 
forests has been, and still is, of such a 
vast. nature that the country will not 
long be able to supply the wants of 
outsiders. Norway a few years hence 
will be almost equally crippled. Indis- 
ereet cutting down of millions of tons 
of timber in years past, with little or no 
preparation for the future, is already 
telling a tale. ‘Twenty-five years 
hence at the present rates of cutting, 
the timber supply of the United States 
will cease. Britain alone receives 
£3,000,000 worth of timber annually 
from America, but the rapid increase in 
the population points to a not far distant 
day when it will be only able to supply 
us with little more than half that 
amount. The once magnificent forests 
of the United States have been enor- 
mously reduced within the last few years, 
and as the demand for a considerable 
time has been 25,000,000 tons ahead of 
the natural supply, the process of ex- 
termination goes remorselessly on, 
14 
Canada hitherto has materially helped 
to make good the deficit in America’s 
timber supply; but here, again, the march 
of civilisation is making itself felt. The 
vast and ever-increasing population that 
has poured into Canada within the last 
few years has resulted in immense forests 
being cut down to make room 
culture”; and in Canada, as 
throughout the United States, an ever. 
present and assiduous enemy is at work 
in the shape of “the devastating fire 
fiend, the blighting irrepressible flamés 
of which are responsible for the destruc: 
tion of ten times more trees than those 
felled by the axe.” It is true that before 
the timber famine actually becomes 
acute, the vast forests of Central and 
South America, of Central Africa, and 
North-Eastern Asia will be requisitioned, 
and will help to avert the evil day. But 
all this evidence tends emphatically to 
confirm the opinion already advanced 
that the world’s supply of timber is no 
longer equal to the demand, and that 
unless existing conditions are radically 
altered, a very few years will bring us 
all face to face with a most. serious 
crisis through the universal scarcity of 
one of the indispensable necessaries of 
progress and civilisation. 
WHAT IT MEANS TO US. 
To realise what this coming tim- 
ber famine may mean to the world 
at large, we have only to consider 
the countless uses to which tim 
ber is now applied. “In almost 
every undertaking, great or small,” 
Mr. J. H. Young reminds us, “timber 
plays a more or less conspicuous part, 
and for numerous industries it is quite 
impossible to supplant it with any other 
substance. Thousands of tons are swal- 
lowed up every year for pit-props in 
mines; railway sleepers constitute a de- 
mand that must run up a big bill per 
annum, not to mention the many other 
uses for which wood is absolutely essen- 
tial in the equipment and working of 
railways; while everybody, of course, 
knows that for the building trades timber 
is the hase of their existence.” Among 
the many by-products of the forests we 
for AgTi- 
Well as 
