The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1907-05-16
THE NATIONS TIMBER SUPPLY
Three Times as Much Timber Used Each
Year as the Forests Grows.

Every person in the United States
is using over six times as much
wood as he would use if he were in
Europe. The country as a whole
consumes every year between three
and four times more wood than all
of the forests of the United States
grow in the meantime. The aver
age acre of forest lays up store of
only ten cubic feet annually, where
as it ought to be laying up at least
thirty cubic feet in order to furnish
the products taken out of it. Since
1880 more than 700, ,ooo, 900, 900
feet of timber have been cut for
lumber alone, including $4,000,
600, 900 feet of coniferous timber i'll
excess of the total coniferous stump.
age estimate of the Census i'll 1880.
These are some of the remarkable
statements made III Circular 81 of
the Forest Service, which deals with
the timber supply of the United
States and review the stumpage
made by all the important authori-
ties. A study of the circular must
lead directly to the conclusion that
the rate at which forest products
in the United States have been and
are being consumed is far too Law
ish, and that only one result can
follow unless steps are promptly
taken to prevent waste i'll use and
to increase the growth rate of every
acre of forest in the United States.
This result is timber famine. This
country is today i'll the same posi-
ton with regard to forest resources
as was Germany $50 years ago.
During this period of $50 years
such German states as SaXony and
Prussia, particularly the latter, have
applied policy of government con-
troll and regulation which has inn
mensely increased the productivity
of their forests. The same policy
will achieve even better results in
the United States, because we have
the advantage of all the lessons
which Europe has learned and paid
for in the course of century of
theory and practice.
Lest it might be assumed that
the rapid and gaining depletion of
American forest resources is suffi-
ciently accounted for by the in
crease of population, it is pointed
out in the circular that the increase
i'll population since 1880 is barely
more than half the increase in lum-
Der cut in the same period. Two
acres supplying timber have al
ready reached and passed their
maximum production-the North
eastern States in 1870 and the Lake
States in 1890. Today the South
ern States, which cut yellow pine
amounting to-one-third the total
annual lumber cut of the country,
are undoubtedly near their maxi
mum. The Pacific States w II soon
! take the ascendency. The State of
Washington within few years has
come to the front and now ranks
first of all individual states in vol
tune of cut. At present but one
fifth of the total forest area of the
United States is embraced in Ma
tional Forests. The remaining four
fifths have already passed or are
most likely to pass into private
hands. The average age of the
trees felled for lumber this year is
not less than $50 years. In other
words, if he is to secure a second
crop of trees of the same size, the
lumberman or private forest owner
must wait, say, at least one hund-
red years for the second crop to
grow. AS a rule, such longtime
investments as this waiting would
involve do not commend themselves
TO business men who are accustomed
to quick returns. But the states
and the nation can lock much far
ther ahead. The larger. then, the
area of national and state control
over woodlands, the greater is the
likelihood that the forests of the
country will be kept permanently