The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-07-01
THE FOREST AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE


valuable inheritance. 1t is the ready
cash of natures bountiful provision for
our future. OF all the natural resources
reserved for our use it is the most di-
rectly useful, for in the forest we find
ready to hand, without further exertion
than the mere harvesting, the great
variety of material applicable to the
needs of man, the means to satisfy every
direct want of life.
The accumulations of centuries are
stored in tree growth of the virgin forest
and in the forest floor of decayed foliage.
The giants which we cut down to-day
are the result of natures unaided forces,
which in the Sequoias have been at work
for over two thousand years, while rarely
less than two hundred years annual
growth is represented in any of the trees
we now utilize.
Nature has taken no account of time
or space, both of which were lavishly at
at her command; nor did she care
whether the forest was composed of the
timbers most useful to man; tree growth,
whatever the kind, satisfied her laws of
development.
But when man begins to occupy the
grounds, when growing Nation has
need of the soil for agricultural use or
for timber, when the forest gives way to
the field and meadow, it becomes
necessary in time to introduce economy
into the use of our inheritance, to
relegate the forest to the non-agricultural
soils, and to make the soil do full duty
in producing only that which is useful
to man.
When this stage of development has
been reached in a Nation, when increas-
ing population calls for economical use
of resources, when it becomes desirable
to reserve the soil to that use under
which it is best fitted to satisfy human
wants, then a new conception of the
forest arises.
The "forest primeval' then, together
with the young natural growth of the
better class, becomes Woodlands" the
brush lands, which result from the care
less treatment of the original growth,
become waste lands" and the name of
''forest" is reserved to those woodlands
which have become the objects of human
care, producing to the fullest capacity of
the soil the most useful material.
No more convincing argument for the
Importance of this resource in Nations
economy can be afforded than to state
the value of the forest product in the
United States.
The total annual product of wood
material of all sorts consumed in the
United States may be valued in round
numbers at 81 1000 100000, representing,
roughly speaking, $4,000, 100000 cubic
feet of wood, or the annual increase of
the wood growth of 500,000,000 acres of
forest in fair condition. This value ex-
ceeds ten times the value of our gold and
silver output. and three times the annual
product of all our mineral and coal mines
put together. 1t is three times the value
of our wheat crop; and with all the toll
and risk which our agricultural crops in
volve they can barely quadruple the
value of this product yielded by nature
for the mere harvesting.
If to the value of our total mining pro-
| duct be added to the value of stone
quarries and petroleum, and this sum be
increased by the estimated value of all
the steamboats,, sailing vessels, canal
boats, fatboats and barges plying in
American waters and belonging to
citizens of the United States, it will still
| be less than the value of the forest pro-
| duct by sum sufficient to purchase at
cost of construction all the canals, buy
up at par all the stock of the telegraph
companies, pay their bonded debts, and
|
| lines. The value of the annual forest
product exceeds the gross income of all
the railroad and transportation COM
panies. 1t would suffice to pay tho
indebtedness of all the States, if we leave
| out New York and Pennsylvania, includ-
| ing that of all counties, townships,
school districts, and cities within those
States lin 18S0); and it would more than
wipe out the remaining public debt of
| the United States. In fact, ranking
manufacturers of all kinds and agri-
culture as respectively first and second
in Importance, as far as production of
values goes, the forest product occupies
the third place. This was the case &C
cording to the census of 1880. 1t is
claimed that since then the lumber in
dustry has enlarged to such an extent as
to make its product second, if not first
in value.
The capital employed in merely mill
ing this product, aside from that en-
plOyed in the harvesting, is roughly esti-
mated at S650,000,000, and there are
more than 100000 people occupied in the
direct manufacture of forest and saw
mill products alone, not to count the en-
ployment afforded by its transportation
to centers of consumption and its re-
manufacture. 1t would lead us through
all phases and employments of human
life were we to attempt an enumeration
of the uses to which forest products are
put.
Not only does the forest furnish the
material for the construction of dwell
ings and other structures, our railroad
consumption of 100000, cubic feet of
timber included, but countless articles
| of domestic economy and implements
necessitate its use. Not only does it
yield to two-thirds of our population the
fuel to warm their houses and to pre-
pare their food, but it gave us the first
means of using our mineral resources,
and even now 100000 tons of iron pro-
duct depend upon charcoal. Not only
does the wood in its natural form serve
our needs, but our ingenuity has invent
ed methods by which we can transform
it into all sorts of useful materials, like
cellulose, paper, and even silk, while
lately it has become possible to prepare
from the brushwood feed for cattle
more nutritious than straw and equal
to hav.
BY distillation of the wood numerous
new products are derived from it, like
alcohol, acetic acid, gas, vanillin, etc.,
and if we recall that the banks yield in
dispensable tanning material, that resin
and tar to pitch our vessels, and turpen-
tine, sassafras oil. and quinine to cure
our ills, rubber and cork for great
| variety of uses mamie sugar and CHINA