Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1883-10-11
A Timber Famine.
Chicago Inter Ocean.


the destruction of forests is going on
in tile United States, we ale within
seven years Of the end Of our white
pine and spruce. Our northern pine
in Georgia or Alabama in Twelve
months, and would require but six
months more for that of Florida or
either OF the Carolinas. Such are the
conclusions of experts officially repre-
senting the United States government
in the matter Of forestry, upon data
furnished by the most careful measure
ments of the forests now sts snding.-
Three hundred million dollars worth
year are being cut in the northern
states Of crop which nobody is plant
ing, and which private individuals,
looking to immediate returns for the
support of their families, cannot af-
ford to plant trees and wait thirty
years for crop. They might, perhaps,
afford TO enter into this business in
crder to even up the advantage they
sustain over other kinds of business,
from the fact that their bills receivable
mature at an average, thirty years
EARLIER than their bills payable on the
same transaction. But even with life
insurance companies the motive would
have to be philanthroPic.
DR.. franklin j. Hough, chief OF
forestry in the department at Washing
ton, estimates that in 1870 our entire,
area of wood lands OF every kind was
3oO,OOOO 600 acres; that We were strip
ping of the wood from 100000
acres annually, and were planting less
than 10000 acres. II this data were
correct, the area Of wood has since
been reduced by 135, 100000 acres and
stands now at 255,000,0O0 acres, or
enough to last % years longer.
The lumber men have satisfactorily
shown that no remedy whatever is to
be found in checking the cutting off
of the lumber, even il there were pow
er in any government or set Of men to
do so. They show that, owing to the
frequency of forest fires, lumber that
is not cut is sure to be swept over by
fire every few years, and when once
burned over it must be cut within the
following year or the worms destroy 1t.
The only way to save the lumber
actually in eXistance, therefore, and
exposed TO cerntain fires is to cut it.
Every township and nearly every
squire mile in Michigan and Wisconsin
containging lumber uncut also has its
settler, and wherever there are settlers
there are fires.
Canada has no supply whatever
greater for her own use than ours is in
preparation to our demand. The
forests Of Canada will inevitably reach
their period of exhaustion at about
the same time as ours. She already
imports from US the black walnut
which she needs for her own use or for
and of which she formerly had
considerable supplies.
What, then, is TO be done? For the
crisis produced in 1S61-4 by the fail,
ure of the cotton supply was not worthy
to be called even hint of the crisis of
disasters that would result from a fail
ure in the lumber supply.
Three courses, the first two of which
present merely possible palliatives, are
really our only alternatives.
l. Ten years from now there must
be forced, sudden and total substltu
tion of brick, stone and iron for build
ing purposes, in lieu of wood.
2. Wood pulp manufactured from
worthless woods and straw must be-
come substitute for timber, or, as the
phrase goes, we must build eur houses
Of paper. Or,
3. The government OF the United
States must take efficient peremptory
measures, either Of coercion or induce
ment, which will insure the planting
and relegation to forest trees, but
especially to the white pine, or at least
100000 acres per year, equivalent
10 the quantity we are now demand
ing.
Of these three alternatives the first
is inadequate. We can substitute
brick, tile, and slate for the clap board
ing and roofs, but it will be very
foreign to our tastes and habits to
substitute either for floors. Even then,
vast supplies of wood are needed for
implements, doors, wainscoting, and !
furniture, and the prospect is that
wood will become very much dearer
than iron.
The second alternative would be
most nearly compensatory, provided
The continued chespeniIg in the pro-
cesses by which wood and straw pulp
have been applid to the manufacture
Of so many things shall be supplement-
ed by such means OF metalizing or
hardening it as shall enable it perman-
entity to endure the weather. This,
however, is one of the contingencies of
a partially developed invention. The
third alternative is nearly the most
hopeless of all. The government and
people of the U1ite6 States, though
nominally omnipotent, are so lethar-
gic!of action that long before the years
Of agitation required to get such
project adopted have been spent in
the popular convulsion in
behalf of tree planting, without which
Congress would do nothing, the great
timber famine will be upon us in full
force. Even were Congress ready to
pass any required law that the most
scientific forestry commission could
frame, still the subject would he one
,f the most difficult, though by far the
most useful, with which that body has
ever attempted to grapple.
On Ann this