The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1907-05-25
TIMBER SUPPLY OF THE UNITED STATES.

Every person in the United States
is using over six times as much wood
as he would use if he were in Eu-
rope. The country as whole con-
sumes every year between three and
four times more wood than all of the
forests of the United States grow in
the meantime. The average acre of
forest lays up store of only 10 cubic
feet annually, whereas it ought to be
laying up at least 80 cubic feet in
order to furnish the products taken
out of it. Since 1880 more than 7oo,-
900, 900, 900 feet of timber have been
cut for lumber alone, including 30,
900, ,ooo, 900 feet of coniferous timber
in excess of the total coniferous stump
age estimate of the census in 1880.
These are some of the remarkable
statements made in Circular 81 of the
Forest Service, which deals with the
timber supply of the United States
and reviews the stumpage estimates
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 lavish, and
that only one result can follow unless
steps are promptly taken to prevent
waste in use and to increase the
growth rate of every acre of forest in
the United States. This result is a
timber famine. This country is to-
day in the same position 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 gov
ernment control and regulation which
has immensely increased the produc-
tivity of their forests. The same
policy will achieve even better re-
suits in the United States, because
we have the advantage of all the les
sons which Europe has learned and
paid for in the course of a century of
theory and practice.
Lest it might be assumed that the
rapid and gaining depletion of Ameri-
can forest resources is sufficiently ac-
counted for by the increase of popu-
lation, it is pointed out in the circu-
lar that the increase in population
since 1880 is barely more than half
the increase in lumber cut in the same
period. Two areas supplying timber
have already reached and passed their
maximum production-the North
eastern States in 1870 and the Lake
States in 1890. Today the Southern
States, which cut yellow pine amount
ing to one-third the total annual lum-
Der cut of the country, are undoubt-
edly near their maximum. The Pa
cifc States will soon take the ascen-
dency. The State of Washington
within few years has come to the
front and now ranks first of all indi-
vidual States in volume of cut.
At present but one-ffth of the total
forest area of the United States is en-
braced in national forests. The re-
naming four -fifths have already pass
ed or are most likely to pass into pri-
vate 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 hundred years for
the second crop to grow. As rule,
such long time investments as this
waiting would involve do not COM
mend themselves to business men who
are accustomed to quick returns. But
the states and the nation can look
much farther 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
productive.