Connecticut western news., 1908-11-05
ON THE VERGE OF
 A TIMBER FAMINE
WARNING FROM FOREST SERVICE
Great Waste of Wood-Rightly Used Would Yield lndefinitely-8,000, 900 Million Cords of Yellow Pine Wasted in 1907.

"oSACu ti tSOi'
 "We are now cutting timber from the forests of the United States at the rate of 300 feet board measure year for every man, woman and child. In Eu- rope they use only 60 board feet" l Few statements could be made which would better show the average man that this country leads the world in the de- mand for timber. It is made by Tread we'll Cleveland, jr., in a circular which treats of the conservation of the forests, soil, water and all the other great nat ural resources, which has just been pub lished by the United States Forest Ser vice. In speaking further of the con- sumption of timber in this country, MT. l Cleveland says;
 "At this rate, in less than thirty years all our remaining virgin timber will be cut Meantime, the forests which have been cut over are generally in bad way for want of care; they will produce only inferior second growth. We are clearly on the verge of a timber famine. This is not due to necessity, for the forests are one of the renewable resources. Rightly used they go on producing crop after crop indefinitely. The countries of Europe know this, and Japan knows it; and their forests are becoming with time not less, but more, productive. We ! probably still possess sufficient forest land to grow wood enough at home to supply our own needs. If we are not blind, or willfully wastefuI. we may yet, preserve our forest independence and, with it, the fourth of our great indus tries.
 Present wastes in lumber production are enormous. Take the case of yellow pine, which now heads the list in the volume of annual cut. In 1907 it is es- timated that only one-half of all the yell low pine cut during the season was used, and that the other half, amounting to 5000, 900 cords. was wasted Such waste is typical. R. A. Long. in his address on Forest Conservation at the confer ence of governors last spring, pointed out that 20 per cent. of the yellow pine was simply left in tbe woods-a waste which represents the timber growing on 300, ,0OO acres.
 "The rest of the waste takes place at the mill. Of course, it would never do to speak of the material rejected a. the mill as waste unless this material could be turned to use by some better and more thorough form of utilization. But in many cases we know. and in many other cases we have excellent reason to believe, that most, if not all, of this material could be used with profit. It is simply question of intelligent investigation and, more than all, of having the will to economize.
 But there are other ways to conserve the forest besides cutting in half the present waste of forest products. The forests can be made to produce three or four times as rapidly as they do at pres ent. This is true of both the virgin for. ests and the cut-over lands. Virgin for. ests are often full stocked with first. class timber, but this stock has been laid in very slowly, on account of the waste, full competition which is carried on con. stantly between the rival trees: Then, too, in the virgin forests there are very many trees which have reached maturity and stopped growing, and these occupy space which, if held by younger trees, would be laying in new stock con. stantly. As regards the cut-over land, severe cutting, followed by fire, has checked growth so seriously that in most cases reproduction is both poor and slow, while ill many other cases there is DO true forest reproduction at all at present, and there is but little hope fo1 the futnre."