Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1907-09-04
LAND
Public Opinion Favors Govern
ment Protection OF Stand.
ing Forests.
SHORTAGE IN LUMBER SUPPLY
Virgin Forest Growth Just About
Balanced by Decay of Present
Standing Timber.

A point i'll the industrial progress of
the United States has now been reached
where developement 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 a
region and then seeking new fields is
practically over. Already the lumber
industry is turning back on its tracks
A quality of timber is eagerly sought in
the Lake States which a few years ago
was ignored as utterly worthless, and in
the South the whole pine region is being
gone over i'll a close search for the old
field pine, tree once despised, but now
brought up at prices much higher than
those formerly paid for the magnificent
timber of the virgin forests.
A publication just issued by the Depart
ment of Agriculture, entitled National
Forests and the Lumber supply defines
the important part which the National
Forests are destined TO play in
the economic developement of the
country. Abuses have grown up under
the laws which provide for the disposition
of public land. notably the segregation of
large holdings of timberland for specu-
lative purposes. Timber from the Ma
tional Forests is now purchased by the
thousand board feet, and payment is made
upon the actual scale of logs when cut
Two dollars and half per thousand feet
is comparatively low as present charges
go, but since the cut ranges from 5000
to 20, 900 feet per acre the Government
receives from FIVE to twenty times as
much for the timber as it did under the
timber aud stone act.
Public opinion now demands, not that
the Government should dispose of its re-
naming timberlands as rapidly as pos
sible and leave it to private enterprises to
exploit the forests hastily, but that what
remains of the National Forests should
be more conservatively used. The
Government has been forced into the
lumber business solely in order that
supply of forest products may be
guaranteed to future generations.
Probably 65 per cent of the total stand
of merchantable timber within the
Forests is located on the Pacific Coast,
where for long time the enormous
supply of privatly owned timber will
satisfy most of the demand. This
more accessible private timber surrounded
the Forests as the meat of an apple sur
rounds the core. 1t has been entirely
eaten away in many places, while in
others il is locked upby spectators The
thing 10 remember, then, is that this inn
mense body of public timber is there as a
great reserve against the time when
private timberlands will be depleted, and
for use as a weapon against monopoly.
The first effect Of Natioual Forests up.
on prices, practically when there is still
great deal OF available timber, is to raise
the price of outside stumpage toward its
actual value by Withdrawing the excess
supply of low-priced timber from the
market But latter, as the supply of
timber dwindles and values are forced
upward by speculative holdings, the effect
of the Forests will be to check the adj
vance of prices.
In the virgin forest, growth is just
about balanced by decay In the vest
ern forests, however, natural deterioration
is greatly augmented by forest fires. The
fires usually do most harm by damaging
merchantable timber, but, great as this
injury is, vastly more actual loss in forest
wealth results from the yearly burning
over Of the grass and underground of the
large trees, but they destroy seedlings
outright and injure growing trees so that
they quickly decay. Finally the forest
floor, composed of a mold of needles,
twigs, and Moses, is burned away.
Far beyond the present influence Of the
National Forests upon the lumber supply
will be their Importance in the future.
The United States is now facing short
age in the stock of available timber. The
yield from the National Forests will aid
greatly to bridge over the period in which
nature timber will be lacking, a period
which will last from the time the old
trees are gone until the young trees are
large enough to take their places.
The defnate result, therefore, of the
sale of timber from the Forests will be to
sustain the lumber business, to maintain
a steady range of timber values and so
discourage speculation, and, far more
important still, steadily to further the
uninterrupted development of the great
indultries dependent upon wood.