The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1880-02-28
Destruction and Growth of Forests.

The lumber trade is about as depressed as any
other branch OF business. prices at the present
time probably being on an average lower than they
were ever before known. This is partly a conse-
quence Of an excess of supply over demand, the
latter having been greatly curtailed by the de-
crease during the last five years of all building
operations in which lumber is the chief compO-
nent. And Notwithstanding the excess of supply,
and the extreme low prices current, we read that
the winter in the principal northern and western
lumber regions has been exceptionally favorable
for logging operations, and as the lumbermen are
said to have taken advantage oft, there is little
probability of any substantial Improvement in
prices in the near future.
And while the primeval forests of the country
are thus rapidly disappearing, very little is being
done towards insuring an adequate supply of
wood for manufacturing and domestic purposes
IN the future, by the culture of young forests.
The vast forests Of hard and pine timber in this
country will not last forever. They decrease the
same with the increase OF civilization; and in sec
tons are rapidly giving out. What the lumber
men do not send to market, fires help to destroy.
Previous TO the settlement Of northern Wisconsin,
which was not many years ago, there were ten
million acres Of land north Of the forty-fourth
degree Of north latitude, covered with timber
valuable for lumber and fuel. Now, at least one
half this growth has disappeared. The same
calculation is applicable to other growing sections,
and at the present rate of consumption, valuable
timber will be very scarce at no distant day.
Hence the necessity Of forest culture to replace the
constant denudation. State aid in some OF the
western States, notably those lying west of the
Mississippi. together with offers Of premiums by
county authorities, has given considerable encOur-
agement to this subject, but the tendency towards
forest planting is nevertheless of exceeding slow
growth, the owners of land being apparently
more ambitious to look upon their hundreds of
acres Of waving wheat or rustling corn, than to
do ANYTHING calculated to benefit posterity. Ex-
perience has demonstrated that the expense and
care Of tree cultivation is about ten dollars a year
per acre. One western farmer has been known
to sell an acre of forest trees fifteen years old for
one thousand dollars. 1t may not be fair to take
this as a fair criterion of the returns; yet the pro-
ducts of culture are believed, by those who have
carefully studied the subject, to be amply remun-
~erative, on rich alluvial soil.
European countries felt the necessity OF forest
planting many years ago, and England and Scot
land can boast their thousands of acres of majes-
tic pines, larches and oaks at home, and their
extensive groves of mahogany and other valuable
woods abroad. Germany has imported thousands
of dollars worth of seeds of the valuable redwood
from California, and the young forests growing
from them are the pride of the nation. Germany
has also established special departments for forest
culture, with the schools necessary to educate the
officers in their duties in cultivating and pro-
tecting trees. Sooner or later, the necessity for
forest planting will be equally as urgent in our
own country.-Nelg York Shipping Last.