The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1899-11-16
OUR DISAPPEARING
FORESTS.

from La Crosse, Wis, have agreed
upon a uniform advance in prices
in two grades of white pine of
from 80 cents to S100 per thou
sand feet. They further an
nounce that all other grades will
be similarly advanced very short
ly. That action calls attention
anew to our diminishing supply
of white pine, formerly one Of the
most common woods in our north
ern forests.
The wholesale dcnudation of
American forests is,and has been
for Il dozen years, a pertinent sub
iect for discussion and Legislative
action. In some States, notably
Pennsylvania and New York,
tardy efforts have been made by
the enactment Of protective leg
islation to conserve the forests
and encourage the establishment
of forestry reservations. But in
the Northwest, and latterly in
the South, the vast pine forests
are being leyeled with unsparing
and wasteful hand. AS the sup
ply lessons and becomes more
remote from river and rail-ship-
ping points, the rate must inevi-
tably continue to advance.
Whenever the subject of the
destruction of forests is raised,
however, defenders of the work
spring up with an array of sta
tistics to prove that while our
yearly consumption of lumber is
about $4,000, 100000 cubic feet,
our visible supply embraces over
4S0, 900 acres, including Alas
ka and the Indian Territory, an
available and continuable supply
for all our present and prospec-
tive needs. These same fallacious
reasoners point to the forest re-
serves of Europe-Russia with
494, 900, 900 acres, Austria with
10000, 900 and on down to Eng
land with something over 1000
600 acres in forests. But Pro
fessor Fernow, chief of the for
estry division in the Department
of Agriculture, has pointed out
that
1t is well known to everybody
who is acquainted with our for
ests that they compare in yield
with the average European CON
tinental forests under systemat-
ic management. Much of what
is reported as forest is useless
brushland, or open woods, and
deprecated in its capacity for
wood production by annual fires,
by which the physical structure
of the leafmould is destroyed,
and, thus, too, it's capacity for
storing the needful moisture. re-
ducing wood production and kill
ing all young growth.
The ruinous practice of indis-
criminate cutting without regard
to future production is the curse
of the numbering trade to-day
and the prime cause Of continual
ly advancing price.
Maine, one of the great sources
OF pine supply, learned this in a
dearly bought lesson years ago,
when her forests through unre-
strained cutting, supplemented
by fire, were threatened with
ruin in Il large portion of her ter
ritory. In Michigan, Wisconsin
and Minnesota and sections of
the South the lesson is yet to be
learned.
There is one compensation,
however, and it is in the utilizing
of heretofore neglected woods. -
The cypress of the South and the
red cedar, the tree Of perhaps
widest distribution in the United
States, have been coming rapidly
to the front for domestic and eX-
port purposes during the past
decade. The diminution OF the
pine timber supply has been re-
sponsible for this. The constant
advance in price, apart from com
binations of capital formed for
that purpose, as well as diligent
investigation on thesubiect, North
and South, leads to the convic-
tion, nevertheless, expressed by