The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-12
Forty Years May See Great
 Forests Denuded
CARELESSNESS REIGNS
More Than One-Fourth of the Lumber Annually Cut Is Used for Boxes, Which Are Destroyed
 After Use,
BY FREDERIC J. HAsKlN.

cutting four times as much lumber each , year from the forests of the country as | nature is supplying. The average Amer 1 ican uses 400 feet of lumber each year as against sixty feet used by his more eco nomical brother in Europe. Lumber prices are just twice as high as they were in 1900 and the tendency is still upward. The forest service of the department of agri- culture is doing everything in it's power to bring Americans to a realization of the prodlgal waste of timber and the ruthless destruction of the forests.
 Men in the lumber business are begin ming to look at the problem seriously. The federal forest reserves as recently in- creased by President Roosevelt comprise an area greater than the total area Of tn republic of France or the German em- pre in Europe, but even with these pre- cautions the most careful and conserVa- tive estimates sho wthat the lumber sup ply will be practically exhausted in from thirty to forty years. The average age of the trees now being cut is 150 years. The difference is marked.
 | More than one-fourth of the annual lumber cut of the United States is made into boxes, crates, barrels and other pack | ages. great majority of the lumber | thus used is destroyed when the box mas l been used once. The life of a packing case | is very short, crates are rarely used but once slack barrels are generally destroyed when once used, while tight barrels are often used many times. The box manu- | facturers are face to face with serious problem. Suggestions have been made that standard size packing cases be adopt ed so as to permit use and reuse The box manufacturers are not particularly struck with the idea, while packing case users want boxes that are new and ot sizes made to fit the peculiar demands of l the shipment. Another suggestion IS that | boxes be put together with screws, or some fastening not so destructive as nails, so that the lumber may be worked over and over again.
 The prices of packing cases have in creased in proportion to the increased cost | of lumber This has led to the too ire ouent use of boxes of inferior quality, and one of the greatest drawbacks to Amer l ican trade abroad is that we too often ship goods in cases that are not strong enough to stand the wear of trips hall way around the world. The barrel makers in some instances have shown much more thrift For example, Kentucky whisky | makers put their goods in barrels which are designed to hold wine The whisky is shipped to California in the course Of trade, and the barrels when empty go to the vineyards to be filled with wine and sent back east. A whisky barrel, one in which the liquor is aged in bonded warehouses, may easily have life Of twenty or thirty years. The ordinary packing caseslasts about six months and then goes to kindle the kitchen fire.
 The United States government destroys l law preventing the boxes from being used twice. Cigar manufacturers are trying to induce the government to relax thls regulation, but as it would lay down the bars to fraud upon the internal revenue, it is doubtful if anything will be done. The best Havana cigars could not be sold for cost if they were packed in any but boxes made of Spanish cedar. Imitation veneers and woods are used, but the best | cigars 20 into cedar boxes. These cost the cigarmaker from 10 to F cents each. The average price of all boxes is about cents each, so that Uncle Sam destroys S5OO0.O0O worth each year. Cigar boxes of the better grades are now sold to the cigarmaker at less than cost, considering only the bare wood box. The profit comes in printing the fancy labels.
 Red cedar from which pencils are made has become so scarce that it Is bought | so honored and prized in the country. The United States makes 320,0O0,OO0 pencils q year. Bavaria makes even more. Both Germany and the United States get most of the cedar in Tennessee, Alabama and Florida Other kinds of wood have been tried but the soft and strinsy spruce or pine will not sharpen easily. Every body has pencil and he sharpens it with his own knife or one he borrows for the purpose. Such knives are rarely sharp and red cedar is the only wood that will cut smoothly with a dull knife The Fabers began making lead" pencils, the lead being a mixture of graphite and clay, in Nuremberg. Europe's supply of red cedar was exhausted years ago and the Fabers came to Florida for more. The American pencil makers started into business and drew upon Tennessee annd Alabama. In Tennessee the supply is nearly gone, and small mills all over the central part of the state are cutting up the scraps bought by the pound into pencil stock" that is blocks of cedera of the pencil length, seven inches.
 Fence rails that weathered the civil war have gone into pencils, Stumps have been dug up and sold for more than the trees which were cut from them to make rail road ties, Fence posts have given way to newer kinds of wood and have been I earted to the pencil factory to be sold for 10 cents hundred pounds And yet this red cedar will grow anywhere in the United States where the soil is not too much sand or clay, will flourish on land that is unfit for agriculture, and will reach a size fit for pencil making when twenty-five years old. The forest service is trying to induce people with land un- lit for other purposes to plant red cedar and to that end will give the fullest and most minute instructions to anyone who is interested.
 One feature which the forestry experts rely on to prevent calamity in the de- struction of the forests is that the advanc- ing price will prevent the use of SC much lumber, so that the forests will not be | cut down so rapidly in the next twenty 1 five years as in the same period just l past. Pullman car made fifteen years ago used up 15,00O feet Of lumber One built now uses only 5000 feet. This saving Is due to the fact that other materials are used in the place of wood, and that veneering has bene substituted for solid wood on account of the prices. Some lumbermen believe that the saving by the substitution of other materials will be neutralized by the increase in population | and business.
 The enormous growth of the of re- , inforced concrete in building construction wastes more lumber than any other one line of business. As much timber is used the boards itno which the concrete is poured as would be used in an ordinary brick building. This lumber is usually l..