The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1907-09-26
TIMBER FAMINE ON.
Statement by Secretary Wilson after
Inspecting Forests.

returned recently from a six
weeks inspection of the private
and national forests of the Pacific
Coast.
Lumber costs twice as much
to-day as it did ten years ago.
The price is steadily advancing
and the supply Of available timber
is decreasing. The Puget Sound
section is shipping daily hundreds
of carloods of lumber to the East.
This is used throughout the Mis-
sissippi Valley, and some of it
comes as far East as Boston. The
mines throughout the country use
great qualities of it. The single
small section of the Cpur d'Alene
district consumes twenty carloads
a day.
The mines will be the first
place where the scarcity will
pinch. This is due to the fact
that large timbers are used in the
mines, and this class of timber
will be the first to be exhausted
and the hardest to produce again.
The call Of the East upon the
Pacific Coast will be shut off tenn
porarily by an added So a thous-
and which the railroads are con-
templating yutting on the trans
portation charge. When the
Panama Canal is completed, how
ever, cheap transportation will be
again established to the East, and
the demand will reappear,
The difficulty Of getting tim
Der will increase gradually but
surely, and in the face Of the pre-
sent demand it would be hard to
say how severe the conditions will
be ten, twenty or thirty years
hence.
Vast quantities of timber are
being wantonly destroyed every
year, This destruction takes
place on lands which are private
ly owned, and is due in large part
to the fact that when the big tim
Der is cut the branches are left
to dry and become a fire trap.
Then when a FIRE is started it
devastates great stretches of land,
killing all the young timber, and
in many instances leaving an abso-
lutte desert behind it. Large lumber
companies which formerly did the
same thing in Michigan have gone
West and bought great tracts of
land, and when the big timber has
been harvesting they have taken
no further interest in the lands,
and have allowed the fires to des-
troy the forests of the future.
These lands are privately owned
and there is no way of restraining
a man from doing as he pleases
with his own property.
"All that l can see that promises
timber for the future is that Sec
ton that is protected by the ma
tional forest reserve. On these
lands certain mature timber is
allowed to be cut, and all waste is
disposed of in such a manner as TO
prevent fire. There will be GER
tain amounts of timber maturing
every year which may be cut, and
| this will go on indefinitely Fire
destroyed only $50, 900 worth OF
timber on the whole of the forest
reserves last year, while the figures
of the lumber people show that
more than $4,000 damage was
done by fire in the State of Wash
ington alone.
Congress has refused to allow
the President to put more lands in
the reserve, and the position of
the department is merely that OF
protecting the timber it already
! has under its care. "
/ Secretary Wilson is greatly I'M
pressed with the remarkable pros
perity throughout the West. He
says that all the people have an
abundance of money, and that
crops are good. Wall Street, he
adds, is too far removed from the
West for its influence to be felt in