Huntington advertiser. [volume] (Huntington, W. Va.) 1874-1921, 1875-08-05
woODMAN SPARE ETHATTREE.
CABELL, C. H., July 9th 1875.

! The timber owners of West Virgin
ia are requested to read the following
article on the Forests of America
and then take into consideration their
own interests in trying to preserve
from destruction their own beautiful
and valuable forests. Moss.
from Letter in the New York World by Gen.
]. S. Brisoin.l
California has perhaps 100000
acres of fine forest, one-third of which
was cut away in the last two years |;
but that State aware of the future
necessity. has wisely commenced the
culture of Australian and Eucalyptus
trees, both of which grow rapidly
and to immense size.
The great Wisconsin forests are in
process of rapid destruction. No less
than 100000, 900 feet of lumber
were cut in a single year. Tens of
thousands of logs are annually RATED
down the Mississippi to towns in Iowa,
where they are cut into boards. One
firm Young & Co } have at Clinton,
Ia, 200 saws running, and three
fourths of the lumber they cut goes
to Kansas and Nebraska. In a sim
Gle year 1s5, 900, 900 feet of Wiscon-
sin logs were cut in Iowa. At the
present rate of telling, in ten, or at
most twenty years from now, not on
ly the Wisconsin but Michigan and
Minnesota forests will be swept away.
Fifty>thousand acres of Wisconsin
timber are cut annually to supply the
Kansas and Nebraska market alone.
New York has lost her maple, wal
nut, and hickory forests, and now has
nothing left worthy the name Of big
woods, except the Adirondacks. /
am very glad to see that your people
are determined to save their magnifi
cent region. In Pennsylvania the
destruction has been still more wan
ton. The land spectators have bought
up every bit of the Allegheny pine
forests, and in their haste to make
money have glutted the market with
lumber of all kinds. What these
vandals spared the fires are now. ta-
king.
A few people only are aware of the
vast inroads made on our tree-growing
regions. Take the matter of rail
road ties alone. and the tens of thous-
ands of miles built, and the tens of
thousands of miles yet to be built,
make the question of ties one of vi
tai Importance. The 1000 miles Of
railroads in the United States has re-
quired in the building the use of 1884,
600, GOO ties, and these have to be re-
placed by new ties every seven years.
Ties, rs every one know, are made
from young timber, and the cutting
of them strikes at the very source Of
our timber supply.
Incredible rs it may seem, 1t Is true
that forest lands are still cleared for
the purpose of being brought under
cultivation. From 1860 to 1870 not
less than twelve million acres of forest
were cut, the timber lodged or burn
cd on the ground and the land farm
ed. The annual decrease of forest
by lodging and burning is still over a
million acres per year.
The demand for lumber in the
whole United States increases at the
rate of about % per cent. per annum,
and the supply has in the last year in
creased 80 per cent. showing that
lumber producers, in their haste to
destroy the forests, are over stocking
the market. While the increase of
forests from planting is less than one
million acres, the decrease from all
causes is over eight million acres an
nualIy. As an example, it is repor
ted that Chicago in 1871 received 3
800, 900 feet of lumber, and 10000
acres we're stripped Of timber to sup
ply that great city with fuel alone.
/ have already referred to railroads
and the important part they play in
the destruction of timber, but the fen
ces Of the United States are really
the great consumers of our trees.
This drain is almost beyond human
computation or belief, and in every
State in the East our farmers are be-
coming alarmed as to what they shall
do for fence timber in the next six
teen or twenty years. Each one is
yearly ecOnomizing more and more his
little store of timber, but still he sees
it melting away and no new forests at
hand to replace it. 1t is an astonishing
fact that the fences of the United
States have cost more than the land,
and they are to>day the most valuable
class of property in the country ex-
cept railroads and real estate III the
cities. Our fences are now valued
at 81 600. .000,00 and to keep in re-
pair costs S98,000, 0,000 annually. In
Illineis it is estimated 100000 Is
invested in fences, so per cent of
which are boards, post and rail, and
10 per cent wire and hedges. These
fences cost $175,0 900 annually for re-
pairs, and yet Illinois is one Of our
new States.
Wnmnn rannire more sleep than