The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1892-08-18


tam sides to swell the rivers ia raging |
torrents, might enforce the lesson were |
we rot deaf to hear and blind to see.
We listen with foolish pride to the
echo of the woodman's ak and the ham
of the busy saw that yearly devours
thousands of acres of our fairest wood
lands, and we boast OF our miles and miles
OF railroad that stretch away to every VII
lage aud hamlet, forgetting that every
mile of that railway has cost us three
Thousand noble trees. Eager for present
gain, the settler attacks with every means
of destruction az his command. our yet
remaining forests that he may swell his
gains with the price of few more acres
of wheat, and the torch of the hunter and
incendiary complete the wholesale des-
truction which our <sO-called industrial
needs cannot keep pace with.
Is it not time to call halt and reckon
with the future? Are our present short
sighted gains any compensation for the
accumulated disasters we are heaping
upon our posterity? What will our
spreading lines of railway and the thou
sands Of manufactures that pour forth
their black and heavy pail OF smoke to
pollute the atmosphere, avail us when
the one runs through stretches OF barren
desert and the others stand crumbllng
and deserted by the shrinking remnants
| OF the once mighty streams that now bear
a nations commerce?
| We imagine that we are accommodating
wealth by the slaughter of our forests
and boast Of the enormous money value
represented by the annual use and sale
OF forest products; but we need TO re-
member that the true wealth of country
lies IN the amount and value of its natur
al resources and not in the possession of
an artificial representation of value.
All the gold of Ophir and all the silver
of Tarshish could not compensate us for
the loss OF our agriculture and its pro-
ducts, and these are directly dependent
|
dependent on our extent of forest area.
If the present wholesale consumption
and waste of our forest products were
necessary and unavoidable there would
of course be no remedy FOR the danger
that menaces us, further than the replac-
ing of every acre destroyed by L like
amount planted with young trees. But
it is certainly true that more than one
half of the present annual destruction is
directly attributable to actual waste, and
that q large part of what is used could be
easily replaced by other materials. A few
more decades at the present rate Of des-
truction will place us face to face with
the absolute necessity of substituting
other materials for all industrial uses, bat
it will then be too late to avoid the evils
that must result from further continu-
ance of our present short-sighted policy.
Is it not wiser to anticipate the unavold-
able change and to check the unreasoning
capacity of those who for few paltry
dollars would rob those to follow them,
OF the very means of existence, and blot
us out from the nations of the earth as
surely as other nations have by like
course been blotted out before us.
The remedy for all these threatened
evils is plain and simple. 1t lies in an
enlighted public opinion which shall
hold as criminal any further destruction
of our forests not absolutely necessary
and that shall provide and enforce wise
laws to preserve as far as may be our
present forest acreage and to replace
such amount as must needs be used by
an equal area replanted with young trees.
And it is the duty of every American
citizen who has true interests of his coun-
| try at heat to work with voice and hand
and pen to check the suicidal course we
are at present pursuing. We have laws
to punish the man who robs his neighbor;
shall he be deemed less guilty who robs
his children, and his children's children?
Robs them not of what can be replaced
| but of the very means and all the pleas
ures of existence-of the kindly air we
breathe and the fertile soil that nourishes
us upon its bosom. Robs them of the
varying sun and rain, of springing blade
and ripened sheaf and cheerful song of
birds, of cool green woods and sunny
! fields of waving grain, of gushing foun.
tains and laughing streams that trickle
down the hlllsides, and bread smooth
| rivers that glide along by busy fields and
stately cities to meet the restless sea- and
leaves them cheated of their country's
th-right to wander homeless in bar
rem desert swept by hot and dusty winds
and void of living green.