Los Angeles herald., 1908-11-03
SERVICE
SOUNDS WARNING
SAYS COUNTRY is OVER VERGE
OF TIMBER FAMINE
VIRGIN TREES WILL ALL BE CUT
IN THIRTY YEARS
Lumber Production Losses Said to Be
Enormous, Eight Million Cords
of Yellow Pine Being
Wasted in 1907

I'VE are now cutting timber :. ON
the forests of the United States, at the
rate of 500 feet, board measure, year
for every man, woman and child. In
Europe only sixty board feet are used"
Few statements could be made which
would better convince the average man
this country leads the world in the de-
mand for timber. 1t is made by Tread
well Cleveland, jr., in a circular which
treats of the conservation of the for
ests, soil, water, and all 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 are generally in
a 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 wilfullv
wasteful, we may yet preserve our for
est independence and, with 1t, the
fourth of our great Industries.
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 only one-half of all
yellow pine cut during the season was
used, and the other half, amounting to
S,000,000 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
simply was left in the woods--a waste
which represents the timber growing
on 100000 acres.
"The rest of the waste takes place
at the mill. OF course, it never would
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, most, if not all, of
this material could be used with profit.
1t is simply a question of intelligent in
vestigation and, more than all, of haV-
ing the will to economize.
but there are other ways to con-
serve the forests, besides cutting in
half the present waste of forest prod
ucts. The forests can be made to pro-
duce three or four times as rapidly as
they do at present. 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 COM
petition which is carried on constantly
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 a 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 in many other cases
there is no true forest reproduction at
all at present, and there is but little
hope for the future"