The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1882-05-03
Forestry Statistics.


is a law forbidding the destruction of o
tree without planting another to take its
place. This law is an outgrowk OF
necessity. It has been scientifically
demonstrated that the increase in violent
storms, foundations, and landslides in
Switzerland, scattering death and de-
struction on all sides, is due to deforest-
ing the mountains.
Gradually the timber has disappeared
until little remains, except on the high
slopes Of the mountains, and that little
is of inferior size and quality. Unless
the process is arrested, the mountains of
Switzerland will present as bald an APP
pearance as those Alps which divide
France from Italy; and nothing more
desolate and dreary outside the steppes
Of Asia, or the desert of Africa, presents
itself to the eye of the traveller.
Switzerland, compared with the area
Of the United States, is but speck, but
if we have more acreage and wider
stretches of timbered lands, we are also
consuming them more rapidly.
A glance at the series of forestry bulle-
tins issued by the Census Bureau is suili-
cicnt to alarm one for the future timber
supplies of the United States. The
maps show the original extent OF the
forest lands and the area de-
nuded by the remorseless ax OF
the lumberman Take Michigan, the
great pine State of the Northwest. More
than three-fourths of the land, including
the upper peninsula, has been stripped
of its timber. A few statistics will show
that the amount of white pine remaining
on the Saginaw and its tributaries, and
in the basins of streams flowing into
Lakes Huron and Michigan, is estimated
at 29, 900 600, 900 feet, board measure.
In the single year ending with May,
| 1880, 4,0GS, 773, 900 feet were cut. At
this rate the supply will be exhausted in
less than eight years. OF the same tim
her on the peninsula there were 6,000,-
100000 remaining, in round numbers,
aud of this 1913, 43S, 900 feet cut in one
year. From Menominee and Delta
counties the merchantable pine, says the
Ballciin, has been almost entirely re-
moved. The destruction of the hard
woods has been on the same exhaustive
scale.
The maps show that along every navi-
gable stream, and on the rivers OF the
lakes, the timber has all been cut away,
and each year the lumbermen have to
go back further into the interior for their
supplies, and the cost is increased by
the greater difficulty in getting the tim.
Der to market.
Wisconsin has only 6, 100, 900, 900 feet
remaining of white pine. In the census
year 540,997, 900 feet were cut. How
long before Wisconsin will cease t.
furnish supply OF this valuable timber
She has still 3,S40,000 acres of har,
wood forest but the ravages in that ar
hardly less than in the pine lands.
Minnesota still has 1900, 600, 600 fee
of pine, and some 6, rs, 600, 600 of mixe'
pine and hard wood to boast of, but til
cut during the census year was ll5, III,
600 feet, and each year as the supple
in Wisconsin and Michigan dwindle tn
demand upon Minnesota's resources wi
! increase.
, In short, unless something is done t
encourage the replantog OF forests
! pine and hard wood it will not be twent
years before there will be timbe
famine in the land, with prices so el
travagant as to put an end to building
!, wood and to the use of wood MS fuel.
, We need not dwell on the effect of d,
l forestry on climate and temperature
This has been repeatedly done in thes
t columns. II is the universal testimor
1 of mankind that it results in dimlnutic
of rainfall, and the dwindling away
I creeks and navigablc streams, and an i
Y crease in sudden and devastating story
Y and violent hurricanes. We have Il
/, history of the old world before us, al
D if we do not profit by the warning e
4 ample we deserve to be punished f
!, such n crime against nature, --Cincinnc
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