The Washington times., 1924-11-19
COOLIDGE ASKS
CONSERVATION
Of TI|NBER
Warns That Forests Of U. 8.
WIN Pass IN Fifty Years II
Waste Continues
BY GEORGE Il. DURNO,
tntcrnatIonaI News Service.

International News Service.
Only the most drastic conserve
ton measures win prevent the abb
lsolute disappearance Of Americas
great forest within less than fifty
years time. President Coolidge re-
yealed today IN opening the nation
al conference on utilization Of Tor
est products. This conference was
called az one Of the last official
acts Of the late Secretary Of Agri
culture Wallace to devise ways ana
means Of rehabilitating American
timber reserves through conserva-
tion and elimination Of waste.
The President drew an urpleas-
ant picture Of tinoerless future.
With cold facts and figures. he
brought home the extreme iHnpor-
tance OF maintaining an adequate
forest reserve. showing how lts de-
struction would be followed BY the
virtual humiliation OF the third
largest industry with its ensuing
era OF unemployment. caused by
StlS 49, ~ AAVsS <g1SAASAAN puAtuAhS
Figures Are Cited.
Production and consumption fig
ures were cited that indicated the
| United States would be without tim
Der within forty years unless drastic
measures were taken at once to re-
store and to check.
The era OF free, wild timber IS
reaching its end, . the President
warned. We can no longer de.
pend on moving from one great
primevaI forest to another, for al
ready the sound OF the axe has
| penetrated the last Of them"
Mr.. Coolidge urged the confer.
ence to bring out & program Of
specific action Tor tiHnber-savinE.
rather than a, mere expression Of
ideas" He promised the fullest
cooperation of the Government and
declared that the vested interests
Of generations. to come hinged upon
the success Of its deliberations. He
did not offer any suggestions, con-
lining his remarks merely 70
portrayal Of conditions as they now
exist.
Oppressed roughly" he said,
I'VE have left about 745 billion
cubic feet of timber. From this,
the annual drain Is 25 billion cubic
feet. This total drain Is most sig
nificant when we reflect that, to-
ward offsetting Il, we have an
annual timber growth Of only six
Billion cubic feet--and even In our
young forests. where this growth
ID taking place, cutting has already
outstripped growth. We must face
the situation that at this rate we
are not far from timber exhaustion.
''To bridge this fatal gap between
cut and growth we have never
taken sufficient action. In fact,
our wealth Of old-grOwth timber has
made us prone to, ignore the gap
and to leave our less fortunate
descendants to struggle with it.
OF our national neglect. They are
already Beginning to be felt. Per
capita annual consumption Of sawed
lumber, which in 1906 had reached
SOS board feet. has dropped to 285
and in some of the Eastern States
to $50 board feet. We are paying q
yearly freight bill of $25O.O00, 900
which could better be used for
growing timber than for transport
ing It."
Declaring that the forest prob
lem Is q land and industrial prob
lem OF the first magnitude. the
President advanced the theory that
fully one.fourth OF the American
area should be kept in forest. He
called attention to the unreasonable
loss now being sustained in cut
over land.
Growth Outstripped.
idle forest land has scrapped
schools, factories, railroads and
| towns" he said; sit has dotted the
land with abandoned farms: it has
created a migratory population.
"The great industries that de-
pend on the forest for their raw
material that. taken to-
gether, rank about bird in value Of
output among our chief industrial
groups-must be preserved They
employ o very large number Of
wage.earners they feed the rail-
roads with a vast flow Of traffic"
The President also dwelt upon
the. tremendous waste now preva-
lent in manufacture, and urged
that every effort be made to elimi-
nate it.
Waste by Manufacturers.
Between cutting the timber and
finally putting the product to Iise,''
he declared, nearly two-thirds Of
the total volume is lost. A third
OF this loss, it is estimated, can,
under present economic conditions
and with tried and tested methods,
be saved"
The President enumerated the
various steps already taken by the
Government and by private inter
ests in conserving the forest re,
serves, but concluded:
These are hopeful signs Yet
we have started too late and are
moving too slowly to bridge the
gap between cut and growth"