Bisbee daily review., 1907-09-06
THE NATIONAL FORESTS AND THE LUMBER SUPPLY.

HE MA IONRL FOHES ,
 AND THE LUMBER SUPPLY.
 4 point in the industrial progress of the United States has now been reached where development of the country is made, not in the face of the forest. but with its essential aid. The old process of exhausting the supply of timber in region and then seeking new fields is practically over. Already the lumber industry is turn ing back on its tracks. A quality of timber is eagerly sought in the lake states which a few years ago was ig- nored as utterly worthless, and in the south the whole pine region is being gone over in a close search for the old field pine, a tree once despised but now bought up at prices much higher than those formerly paid for the magnificent timber of the virgin forests.
 A publication just issued by the department of agriculture, entitled National Forests and the Lumber Supply" defines the important part which the national forests are de stined to play in the economic devel- Opment of the country. Abuses have grown up under the laws which pro vide for the disposition of public land notably the segregation of large hold ings of timber land for speculative purposes. Timber from the national forests is now purchased by the thous and board feet, and payment is made upon the actual scale of the logs when cut. Two dollars and a half per thousand feet is comparatively low as present charges go, but since the cut ranges from 5000 to 10000 feet per acre, the government re- ceives from five to twenty times as much for the timber as it did under the timber and stone act.
 Public opinion now demands, not IiEsi1 of its remaining timberIands as rapid Iy as possible and leave it to private enterprise to exploit the forest hasti- ly, but that what remains of the na- tionaI forests should be more conser- vatiyely used The government has been forced into the lumber business solely in order that a supply of for est products may be guaranteed to fu- ture generations.
 Probably 65 per cent of the total stand of merchantable timber within the forests is located on the Pacific coast. where for a long time the enor- mons supply of privately owned tim Der will satisfy most of the demand. This more accessible private timber surrounded the forests as the meat of an apple surrounds the core. It has been entirely eaten away in many places. while in others it is locked up by speeulators. The thing to remem- ber, then. is that this immense body of public timber is there as great reserve against tLe time when private timberlands will be depleted, and for use as a weapon against monopoly.
 The first effect of national forests upon prices. particularly where there is stin a great deal of available tim Der, is to raise the price of outside stumpage toward it's actual value by withdrawing the excess supply of low priced timber from the market But later. as the supply of timber dwin- dles and vaIues are forced upward by speculative holdings, the effect of the forests win be to check the advance of prices.
 In the virgin forests. growth Is just about balanced by decay. In the western forests. however. natural de terio-sdon is greatly augmented by