The Ketchikan miner., 1908-10-17
OUR TIMBER.

st somewhere between fourteen hund- red and two thousand billion feet. If
 we use forty billions per annum, we can run thirty-four to fifty years at the present rate of consumption, pro-
 vided We do not have any waste. If
 We use one hundred billions per an- nun, our timber will last fourteen to twenty years ou the same basis. If
 we use one hundred and fifty billions
 per annum. in nine to thirteen years
 our timber will all be gone. We have
 DOW about l65. 0OO, GOO. acres in our
 national reserves. If we had three times that much, We should not have enough.
 If it costs twenty acres Sunday or forty acres a week, or ,. oSo acres
 a year to print one daily newspaper,
 what does it cost in acreage to print
 all the F, 500 newspapers in the Unit ed States? Add to all this the enor- nous editions of magazines, and all the paper used in books, and the total staggers the imagination. though the amount of timber cut for pulp iu the United States annually is less than i've per cent. of that cut for
 lumber. Last year r-we made more than 3l5. Ooo, Ooo lead pencils. 4 lead pen-
 cil is not very large, but the total
 number of lead pencils required :, 300, 600 cube feet of cedar. We have
 cedar enough 10 last US just twelve years.
 More than loo, 00O acres of timber in the whole United states are cut over every working day. We use many imes more timber per capita than any other nation. We have left not over 45O. coo, 0o0 acres bearing commer- cial timber. Cast up in your mind some of the small demands of industry upon this supply. Our railroads are said to use one third of the industrial timber for ties. Suppose we could cut one hundred ties to the acre, we
 would require million acres year for ties alone. We annually reap for
 telegraph and telephone poles some where between three and four million
 acres of timber. Our tauneries two years ago required l.370. eco cords of
 bark. ID the same year we cut
 II, S58, 260 shingles, ard }. .sl2, 07s laths.
 Then We had to timber our mines, and
 for that we used 165, OO0, 00O cubic
 feet, not board measure, most of
 which was the best of hardw wood.
 In these times of great drains or Ehe timber supply, csrsed by tie heavy demand for forest products of all kinds, Americans may see in Japan
 an example of what can be done in growing wood on small plots. That country contains 2l million wood lots, about three fourths of which belong to
 private persons and one fourth to communes. The average size of the plots is less than nine teDths of an acre. They really occupy the steepest,
 toughest and poorest ground. In this way land is pu. in use which otherwise would go to waste, and if unwooded. would lose it's soil by the wash of the dasbing rains.
 rom Japan's wood lots, the yearly yield of lumber is about sS feet, board measure. per acre, and three four,hs of cord of fire wood. In many cases the yield is much higher. More than half million trees are planted yearly to replenish what is cut for lumber and fuel. Assessment for taxation is low. averaging for the twenty-one million lots less than dollar an acre. With all the care in cutting. and the industry in replantipg. 1t is by TO means certain that Japan's forests are holding their own. If the preser- yation of the forests is doubtful there. it is evident that depletion must be alar mingiy rapid in other countries which cut uDsparingly and plant very little. On the other hand, it is en- to see what can be done with rough. steep and poor land. The United States has enough of that kind, 1 touching the rich agricultural acres, to grow billions of feet Of lumber.