The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-11-14 00:00:00

AMERICAN FORESTS.

Constant and reckless destruction of our forests is
last bringing us to a condition in which there will be
occasion for real alarm (says the New York rinses.) It
is not probable that any " scare" like that which a
few years ago went over England, concerning the pro-
spective exhaustion of her coal supply, will immedi-
ately occur in America, touching the lose of our forests;
but we wish something near enough approaching it
might happen, to stop a work that is full of evil pro-
mise. In the whole of the United States there is left
but one really great tract of timber. It lies at the far
extreme of our country, and consists of about one-
half of Washington territory and a third of Oregon.
California has, perhaps, 500,000 acres of forest now,
of which fully one-half hats been cut away within
the last two or three years. Here in New
York we have no considerable forest left except
is the Adirondack region. Our wealth of maple,
walnut, and hickoly is eubetantially gone, sad a large
part of it has been wantonly destroyed. Wiiconein
had a magnificent forest growth, but the people are
sweeping it away at a marvellously rapid rate. One
billion feet of timber was cut in a mingle year. It will
not take more than a decade or two at the utmost to
fairly exhaust this source of wealth to the State.
Michigan and Minnesota are following in the same
course, slashing away at their forests as if a tree Main°
right to lift its head. One of our most intelligent army
officers, General Brisbin, who knows the western
country thoroughly, and to whom accurate knowledge
of this subject we are indebted for many facts, says
that 50,000 acres of Winconein timber are cut annually
to supply the Kansas and Nebraska markets alone.
The Sa.tinaw forests are even now practically des-
troyed, and if the Northern Pacific Railway is built, it
will open up to the axe the one remaining belt of
American timber, in Oregon and Washington territory.
The railroads have been the great destroyer; of our
' forests. They use 160,000.000 of ties annually—that
means the levelling of at leant 150,000 acres of trees.
The timber they use, also, is not the refuse or the
inferior, but among the very beet, fine young trees Sin.
to 10in, in diameter. If it is remembered that ties
I have to be renewed every seven years, the extent of
demand on our forests will be appreciated. When
10,000 miles more of rails have been laid, it will require
all the young trees in the country to supply the demand
for ties. Fences are also enormous consumers of trees.
In the East we are learning in this regard economy from
necessity, but in the West, in some States, the farmers
cut down the forests with scarcely more thought than
they harvest their grain. The fences of the United
Staten, people may not generally know, have coat
more than the lands, and are to-day the most valuable
class cf property, save railroads and real estate in
cities. Illinois alone has $2,000,000 invested in fence%
and they cost annually :8175,000 for repairs. In
Nebraska, where excellent herd laws are in force, the
necessity for fences has been so much lessened that the
fences id the State coot less in proportion to population
than in any other in the Union. The outrageous waste
of timber caused by the felling of forests and burning
of the trees to bring the land under cultivation gees on
still at a fearful rate. From 1660 to 1570 no less than
12,000,000 acres of forest were thus wanC;zily destroyed.
For fuel also vast tracts are levelled of their trees. It
took 10,000 acres of forest to supply Chicago with fuel
in one year-1871. Our annual decrease of forest from
all these causes is not far from 8,000,003 acres. Yet
we plant only 10,000 acres of new forest a year.