Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1908-12-18
TIMBER SUPPLY OF
UNITED STATES

rate of 500 feet board measure year
for every man, woman, and child. In
Europe they use only 60 board feet. y
Few statements could be made which
would better convince the average man
that this country leads the world in
the demand for timber. 1t is made by
Treadwell Cleveland, Jr., in a circular
which treats of the conservation of the
forests, soil, water, and ali the other
great natural resources. which has just
been published by the United States
Forest Service. In speaking further of
the consumption of timber in this
country, Mr.. Cleveland says:
cat 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 over the verge of a
timber famine.
''This is not due to necessity, for the
forests are one of the renewable re-
sources. Rightly used, they go on pro-
ducing 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 wasteful, we may yet pre-
serve our forest independence and,
with it, the fourth of our great indus
tries.
"Present wastes in lumber produc-
tion are enormous. Take the case of
yellow pine, which now heads the list
in the volume of annual cut. In 1907
it is estimated that only one-half of all
the yellow pine cut during the season
was used, and that the other, amount
ing to 5000, 600 cords, was wasted. Such
waste is typical. Mr.. r. A. Long, in
his address on Forest Conservation at
the Conference of Governors last spring,
pointed out that 20 per cent. of the yell
low pine was simply left in the woods
"a waste which represents the timber
growing on 100000 acres.
''The rest of the waste takes places at
the mill. OF course, it would never do
to speak of the material rejected at 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. 1t
is simply question of intelligent in
vestigation and. more than all, of hav
ing the will to econon1ize.
"But there are other way to conserve
the forests 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
forests and the cut-over lands. Virgin
forests are often fully stocked with first
class timber, but this stock has been
laid in very slowly, on account of the
wasteful competition which is carried
on constantly between the rival trees.
Then, too, in the virgin forests there
are very many trees which have reach
ed maturity and stopped growing, and
these occupy space which, if held by
younger trees, would be laying in new
stock constantly. 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 in many other
cases there is no true forest reproduc
ton at all at present, and there is but
little hope for the future"
p -