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6

ALARMING DESTRUCTION

OF

ERICAN FORESTS.

BY

WILLIAM LITTLE,

OF MON'TRK.vr,,

I'tcePiraiili'iit of tlip .4nif)U-nn Foicatrj/ Con.jreti.

Kej^iinlfil from ' Vo\m&m\i\,' for Aufiud, 1883.

I.ONDuV :
WILLIAM RI1)1:k .^ S^N. It, KAHTIIOLoMKW CLuSE, E.G.

l.SS.i.

MONTHLY-ONE SHILLING.

Forettnr inoIuJeg in its pages nverj-thingof interest
romerning laresta nnd other w.Mdland^ lakes and
nvcis. mooiliitid, fe.i, rn..unfain, vall..v d.iwn
heath, f!len.di,i«Ie, waysid.- ..n j .fr«am8ide, and
all tli« plaii'S where wiUl life exists.

Forestry e„niainspBi.erjon the teaching of Forestry,
on tlie munai<ement of rura! :-stat*s. M.<i on all
sorts of praetical nmttcrs useful to (iountri-
gcntlenun.

Subscriiition, Uj-j'er annum, post free.

LOITDOlr .
WaUiM RIDRH 4 ton, 14, BARTHOLOMEW ClOgK.

siieiv

I *

ALARMING DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.

^ AM desirous of drawing attention to a auliject of very great
m importance connected witli our North American forests. The
^ question is one that is not only within the line of subjects
discussed in ' Forestry,' but is one that may be said to be of cosmo-
politan interest. My remarks will have especial reference to the
present condition of American forests as regards the supply of
timber known in iliis country as Yellow and in America as White
Pine — a wood that, besides furnishing, in the past, three-fourths of
the building timber of the United States and Canada, has also found
a market to a large extent in the British Islands for over half a
century.

That tlie constant drain made upon the forests of America for
supplies of this invaluable wood should, at last, occasion a scarcity and
compel economists to point to a time, in the very near future, when its
total exhaustion may with confidence be predicted, will not surprise
those who have known the enormous demands made upon them, but
it is questionable if many persons are prepared to realise how near at
hond tliat time is.

Thinking men aware of the facts and desirous of protecting the
Forests have tried to forewarn the public of the actual state of things,
but have only been ridiculed for tlieir pains. Now, however, this
matter has passed beyond the region of conjecture. The timber
supply of the United States has been caiefully ascertained through
investigations made in connection with the census, and that of Canada
is so well known, to those conversant witli the subject, as to give
rise to the most serious apprehensions.

liespectiug the United States supply Professor Charles S. Sargent,
Director of the Arnold Arboretuui, Harvard University, and special
agent in charge of Forestry Statistics of the United States Census,
made the following statements last year, in a paper read before the
Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture : —

' The entire supply (White Pine) growing in the United States and ready for
the axe, does not to-day greatly, if .at all, exceed bO,000,UOO,000 feet, and this esti-
mate includes the small and inferior trees, which a few years ago would not have
been considered worth counting. The annual production of this lumber, is not
far from 10,000,000,000 ft., and the demand is constantly and rapidly increasing.

' The publication of these facts a few months ago has greatly increased, and in
some cases more than doubled, the value of Pine lands ; and it does not require
any particular powers of foresight to be able to predict that the price must ad-
vance to still higher figures. Enough is now known to permit the positive state-
ment that no great unexplored body of this Fine remains ; and that, with the

\

DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.

exception of the narrow redwood belt of the California coast, no North American
forest can yield in quantity any substitute for it.'

On another oi;cii.sioii, in an article published in the North American
Review, he says, respecting the redwood : —

'The belt of redwood forest along the California coast has already suffered
severely at the hands of the lumberman, and many of its finest and most
accessible trees have already been removed. A large amount of this valuable
timber is still standing — less, however, than has generally been supposed ; and
at the present rate of consumption the commercial importance of this forest will
have disajjpeared at the end of a few years more.'

And again, in the same article, as if to emphasize his remarks
respecting the disappearance of the White Pine, he says : —

' Fatal inroads have already been made into the great Pine forests of the North
Atlantic region, its wealth has been lavished with an unsparing hand ; it has
been wantonly and stupidly cut, as if its resources where endless ; what has not
been sacrificed to the axe has been allowed to perish by fire. The Pine of New
England and New York has already disappeared. Pennsylvania is nearly stripped
of her Pine, which only a few years ago appeared inexhaustible. The great
north-western Pine states, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, can show only a
few scattered remnants of the noble forests to which tliey owe their greatest
prosperity, and which not even self-interest has saved from needless destruction.'

This is the conditidn of the United States fore.sts as described
b}' a gentleman who was specially engaged by the Government
on account of his pre-eminent ability and high character, to thorougldy
investigate the subject, made two years after all reports had been
given in, when any errors in calcnbitions, if such existed, would be
fully known ; and what does it show but that there was then barely
eight years' supply of this timber ? Since then, another year's cut —
said to be the largest ever made — has been renjoved ; so that to-day
there is standing in the forests less than seven years' stock of this
timber, not only that of merchantable quality, but of all kinds, good
or bad, large or small, old or young — timber convenient and accessible,
as well Hs that more remote and inaccessible. So serious, indeed, are
the facts that actually, before another Census Report could be made,
there would not be a foot of this timber to take into account if the
present reckless cutting should continue !

And now if we turn to Canada, what do we find is the condition of
things there ? It would, of course, be easy to give the present writer's
own views, or those of his father, Mr. James Little, of Montreal, to
whose writings — probably more than to any other cause — may be
ascribed the present interest in the subject of forestry in America ;
but instead of this we will transcribe from the valuable report on the
Canadian Forests, submitted to the Govenmient some five years ago,
by the Hon. H. G. Joly (Seigneur, late I'remier of the Province of
Quebec), as Member of the Dominion Council of Agriculture — a report
which is replete with most valuable information and suggestions.

In this report we find, under the heading ' State of our Forests,'
among other remarks made, the following : —

DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.

' They (the forests) contain,' says Mr. Joly, ' a great variety of timber, but I
will call your attention principally to the Pine and Spruce, as they form nearly
all our export to Europe, and are really the produce of our forests j while the
hard -wood we export, especially the tine Oak, nearly all comes at present from
the Lake regions of the United States, n» we have very little of our own left.

' For some years j)ast,' continues Mr. Joly, 'the idea has Injen gaining ground
among men who take an interest in the future of the country, that our great
I'iiie and Spruce foi-eats are getting rapidly exhausted, and that before long
a trade which enables us to exjwrt annually over twenty million dollars' worth
of timber, will shrink down to wofiilly reduced proportions.

' Thinking men have begun to sound the note of alarm, and we owe it to them,
but e8i)eLially to ourselves as a nation, to try and find out how far their pre-
visions are likely to prove true.'

Then, after showing what difliculty the inquiry presents, lie
says :—

' Let us now try and make an inventory of the timber resources of the
Dominion, beginning in the west. On the Pacific shores of the Dominion, in
British Columbia, the bountiful gifts of Providence are still stored up for us, and
the forests iiave scarcely been attacked by the lumberman. IIow long these
treasures will last us, and what advantages we shall derive from them, depends
in a great incisure upon ourselves.

' From the Rocky Mountains to the Province of Ontario there are scattered
here and there certain tracks of well-timbered land, but they are the exception.
That timber will be required for the local wants of the peoi)le who are now only
beginning to settle on our fertile prairies.'

(It is now known that this prairie country will reqtnre thousands
of millions of fe^t in excess oi its own stock !) The report yoes on to
s.iy :—

'Tile great forest of t^aiiada, pur e.r('<'If('»ri; is spread over that vast territory
waiered by the Ottaw i, the St. Maurice, the Saguenay and their tributaries,
over one hundred thousand sipiare miles in extent ; before drawing your atten-
tion more particid irly to it, I will mention our remaining timber limits, that
cannot compare with it either for size or resources. They are found in tiie
(Georgian Bjiy country ; the Mnskoka and Nipissing regions; the Kastern Town-
ships of Quebec and .south shore of the St. I^awience, to the (Julf ; the region on
the north shoie of the St. Lawrence, from the Saguenay down to the Hersimis,
and, perhaps, still lower down, as far <aa Mingan ; and the country watered by
the St. John, the Miramichi, the Restigouche and their tributaries. Those
limits, in numy phu^es, are scattered and isolated ; they have, with few excep-
tions (such as the Ber.^imis at the east, and some uowly-discovered Pine tracts
at the west, on Lake Superior), been worked foi' a long time, and cannot be
expected to supply, much longer, any consideiable (piantity of tirst (piality
Pine, but they still contain jin immense quantity cf .Sjirucc, principally in the
east, sutlicient for a great many years' supply, if carefully worked ami protected.
The Spruce, unlike the Pine, reproduces itself wiih wonderful ease, and a
good Spruce country, carefully worked, where you leave untouciied all the
trees under a certiiin size, sjiy twelve or thirteen inches at the foot, can be
worked and worked again after a very few years' rest, I might say almost
for ever.

' As a match to the timber wealth of British Columl)ia in the west, there have
been lately diseovei-ed at the extreme east of British North America, in the
recent explorations through the hitherto unknown interior of Newfoundland,

6

DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.

magnificent forests ; let us hope that, before long, they will take their place,
among our Canadian forests.

* I will now return to the Great Canadian Forest, our great Pine countrj', with
its wonderful network of Htreanis, and its three great arteries, the (Ottawa, the
St. Maurice, and the Saguenay.

' Does it begin to show signs of exliauntion ? Is it possible that, in such a
short time, man has been able to make an impression ujton those millions and
millions of acres of forest ?

' If there is no sign of exliaustion, what is the meaning of the complaints tliat
come over the seas to us, every year louder and louder, about the falling oft", in
quality and size, of our Pine, hitherto considered as the finest in the world ? Are
they no more than the ordinary complaints of the purchaser t I leave it to our
lumbermen to answer.

* But, before they answer, I will aak them why are theyconpelled to go now to
such enormous distances for the really superior (juality of Pine they used to get so
much nearer home a few years ago i

'Look at the niaj) of that great region, and you will see how little of it is now
left untouched. On the Oniario sid«, all the most accessible tributaries of the
Ottawa, the Madawaska, the Bonnechere, Mississipiji, Petewawa, and others,
have been worked for years ; the lumbermen are now round the eastern end of
Lake Nipissing, with the Matawan for an outlet to the Ottawa, that am only Iw
reached by a land road ; they are still much further north, on the shores of thu
Montreal Paver.

* On the Quebec side, they have nearly reached the head waters of all the great
tributaries of the Oltavsa, the J{iviLie liouge, the Pivicre du Litvre, the (iatineau
with the Jean de Terre and Lake Kakebimga and the Lac des Paj)ide8 ; ihey
are now working three hundred miles higher up than Ottawa, as the river runs,
on Lake Temise^imingue and the Keepawa.

'On the St. Maurice, they are as far up as Lake Manouan, on the western side
of the river ; its great tiibu'arie.s, on the eastern side, the Bostonnais and the
Riviere (Jroche, have been dejnived of the greatest part of their tine Pine; it is
now sought at the head waters of those rivers.

'As for the Sagnenay region, it still contains a good deal of Spruce, but there
is only a limited extent of Pine still untouched, or nearly so, south of Lake St.
John, between the Metabetchouan and the head waters of the Riviere Croche
near Commissioners Lake and Bouchette's Lake. There is a little Pine left north
of Lake St. John, and a certain quantity on tlie River Shipsha, and in the Lower
Saguenay on the Ste. Marg\ierite and Petit St. Jean, etc. As for the large rivera
that flow into Lake St. John, the Chamouchoua, Mistfissine and Peribonca, the
Pine that was on the lower part of those rivers has been nearly all cut, and the
remainder of their course from their distant northern sources, is through an
immense burnt up wilderness, where the vegetjible soil has been consumed by
tire.

' That huge tract of lumber country, between the Ottawa and the St. Maurice
that separated (or rather apjwared to separate) the lumbermen working on those
two rivers, by what seemed an inexhaustible and endless forest, — that huge tract
is tapped through and through, and the Ottawa lumberman has met the St.
Maurice lumberman on the sliores of Lake Manouan. A glance at the map will
show what that means.

' Those who think that there will never be an end to our timber may say : " We
can still go north."

' Not very far north. From Lake Temiscamingue and the Montreal River, on
the shores of which the lumberman is plying his axe at this very moment, they
cannot go very far north before they strike the height of lands dividing the St.
Lawrence water-shed . from the Hudson's Bay, and the country is generally poor

DESTRUCTION OF AMEBIC AN FOIiESTS.

and barren. There is still some fine Pine tliert", in what quantity is not known,
along the heiul waters of tlie Ottawa, but it cannot be broiight down to market,
at least as square timber, untd very extensive and costly works have been
executed for the improvement of the great Uapide des (juinze.

•Unce over the heights that divide the St. l^iwrence and Hudson's Bay water-
■heds one from another, the streams, without which timber cannot be brought to
market, all run to the north to .lames's Hay and Hudson's ll;iy. Those regioua
are generally represented as a huge barren wilderness with little timber an<l that
mostly of a stunted growth. There is, doubtless, some good tindjer, but the idea
of driving it down the Rupert, the Notway, the Harricanaw and all those long
rivei-s, to the shores of James's Bay, and taking it home down Huilson's Bay, eight
liundred miles long and through the dangerous Hudson Strait does not appear
very practicable. Whatever timber is there may an well be considered as out
of our reach for the present. In tlie course of time the scjircity of timber fit
for export may l)ecome so great as to encourage the lumbermen to turn their
efforts in that direction, but that region may safely be loft out of our reckoning
on the present available timber supply.

' In a very short time since the beginning of this century we have overrun our
forests, picking out the finest Tine, and we have impoverished them to a serious
extent, and, what makes it worse, impoverished the country too, for, owing to the
force of circumstances, which we shall consider later, our timber export trade liiis
not given Canada such a return as she had a right to expect. Thvre .still remains
to us a great deal of Spruce and second-rate Pine which, for generations to come,
will be in excess of our local wants, if we are careful, but the really tiue Pine,
retpiired to keep up our great tindjer export trade to its present .stimlard is
getting very scarce and inaccessible, and 1 fear we must prejKire for a sudden and
considerable falling off.

' While every one admits the great value of the timber trade to f'an.ada, no one
would complain, in a new and scarcely peopled country like ours, if the finest
Pine forests were to distippear and make room for fine farms. But, unfortu-
nately, we cannot comfort ourselves with such hope, for the soil of the L'ine region
is not generally favourable to agriculture, and when the Pine disapjiears the
farm does not very often take its place.

' Men are the same all over the world. They never set much value upon the
free gifts of Providence, and disrei^ard them in proj»ortion to their abundance.
Timber, fish, and game have been destroyed everywhere in the same way. When
what appeared to be inexhaustible becomes exhausted, it then begins to be valuable
and we must pay for our experience.

' Our neighbours in the United States have applied to the de.struction of their
forests their almost superhuman activity and energy, and they are now worse off
than we are for timber. But their eyes are being opened. Tiie President, in
his last message, has earnestly drawn the attention of Congress to the subject,
and the following quotation from the last annual report of the Secretary of the
Interior, shows how thoroughly they appreciate the gravity of the situation : —

' " The rapidity with which this country is stripped of its forests must alarm
every thinking man. It has been estimated by good authority, that if we go on
at the present rate, the supply of timber in the United States will, in le^5S than
twenty years, fall considerably short of our home necessities.

' '• It is time that vj should turn our earnest attention to this subject, which ao
seriously concerns our national prosperity." '

And after referring to the older settlements of the Province of
Q'' '..joc being painfully bare of trees, Mr. Joly sums up his Report ou
' the present state of our forests,' by saying ' that it is very far from
satistactoiy and leaves much room for improvement.' But in his very

8

DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.

able Keport ho does not atop short at ' the state of the forests,' but
allows his clear insij^ht into everything appertaining to the subject by
accounting for the facts of a continued over-production of wood side by
KJde with rapidly receding and diminishing supplies. In alluding to
t le ov( r-production he says : —

'There cannot be a greater waste of any marketable commodity than by over-
production. It is unavoidable, aa the extraordinary siicceHs of any given brunch
of industry is certain to produce it ; but generally it does not take long after its
fatal effects are felt before the evil cures itself. Unfortunately our timber trade
is an exception to that rule. In the face of a glutted market we persist in our
ov«<r- production, as if we ex|>ect to relieve the market by glutting it still more.

'Over-production in the timber trade is a greater evil than in any other
business, as the raw material cannot be replaced for generations. With a few
exceptions, the lumbermen of C!anada, fis a rule, cannot stop their production of
timber ; they cjin scarcely curtiil it. Without meaning any disrespect to a class
of hardworking, honourable men, I think they may be considered (with the few
exceptions above alluded to) jis not being /rw a(jent».

'Their relations with the advancers of money, the banks, the brokers, the
purchasers in England, are of such a complicated nature that it is difficult for
them to realise at any time what their financial jxjsition is. They know they
are dependent upon otheis ; they have been so from the beginning, and they
continue so until at last, after long yeai-s of hanissing, desperate work, with both
body and mind worn out, they find themselves poorer than when they began.
The lumbermen have indicated the remedy for over-production, but have not
been a'.)le to ajtply it. Each one is ready to admit that he (or rather his
neighbour) is cutting too much timber, and that he would make more profit
with a less quantity.

'It is bad enough that so much money should be wasted away in cutting
down timber for no good, but if tliere were an inexhaustible supply of timber
on the Crown lands, the (}overnment, receiving a la'ger amount of timber
dues than it might otherwise, would not be likely to interfere to protect the
lumberman against himself. But our forests are getting rapi«lly exhausted
and their jii-oduce sacrificed, and it is a loss for Canada and for the lumberman.

' Of course the first result of a decrease in the production of timber, in so
far as the Government is concerned would be a corresponding decrease in the
Crown lands receipts. I won't call it the revenue, because there is something
deceptive in the use of that word. We are apt to fancy that it always means
(as Worcester has it) the income or annual profit received from lands or other
j>ropcrty. It is nothing of the kind in this case. We have not been spending
the income or annual profits of our forests, but the forests themselves ; not
the interest, but the capital.'

It will be observed in the foregoing report that Mr. Joly speaks of
some timber on the head waters of the Ottawa not available, at least as
square timber, till improvements are made on the Rnpide des Quinze,
and in a few lines to the present writer, as he was leaving home, he
says, after alluding to his Keport as having been collected at different
reliable sources, ' since then they ' (the lumbermen) ' have rendered
the Eapide des Quiuzes practicable, and are drawing on that last uu-
touched reserve.'

The foregoing is a picture made some five years ago of the condition
of the Canadian forests by a gentleman thoroughly conversant with

i.'f

DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.

^

the timber trade — an enthusiast on the subject of forestry, and
liavin" recourse to everv available source of information on the
subject. What can we gather from his statements but that Canada
is almost in the same deplorable condition as the United States as
rej^ards its stock of valuable Pine timber ? It may be here worthy of
mention that, thouyh Professor Sargent, in his remarks, made little
reference to the condition of the Spruce forests of his country,
yet an examination of the Forestry Bulletins ]»ul)li.shed by liis
Department, shows that the existing amount of Spruce timber will
have disappeared in as short a time as the Tine, and although Mr.
Joly appears to consider that the Spruce forests of Canada would
supply the home consum})tion for a great many years, yet it would
.supply for but a limited peiiod the thousands of millions of feet that
will be required by the United States when it has parted with its
White Pine and Spruce timber, and when it has no other source of
su|)ply for this description of wood than Canada — and from no other
source can it be obtained so cheaply as it can from Canada — so that if
we act with prudence, and husband our wealth of timber, there is a
great future in store for our country. lUit it is not by using our
efforts to get rid of cur timber resources in the reckless niiinner we
have bi;en doing in the past, but rather l)y restricting the cutting, by
more careful manufacture, and by considering every growing tree as
so much capital, not to be parted with without valuable consideration,
that we shall accomplish our object. For this result we shall not have
long to wait, for though, as appears a'love, it would take neaily seven
years to entirely exhaust the White Pine timber of the United States,
by far the largest portion of this tindierlies within the extreme North-
west, contiguous to that great prairie world which is now being so
rapidly developed, and which will require all the timber that grows
there. In fact, the po])ulation of the prairie districts are evim now
planting trees to provide for their future wants. The only section of
the "White Pine timber country that now competes with Canada in
the maikets to the south of us, where the bulk of this timber is con-
sumed, is ^lichigan ; and this State, according to the most authentic
information, would not be able to continue the cut of the past season
for more than four years longer.' Moreover, a knowledge of these
facts has so advanced the price of standing Pine in that State, that
the price of the manufactured article must continue to advance very
rapidly for the future, as there is no other wood in America or else-
where that is applicable for so many purposes and of such general use.
It has often been said that there would be found a substitute for
wood ; if so, it is quite time the discoverer brought it forward, for up
to the present the ingenuity of the ' everlasting Yankee ' has not
even touched the subject. Notwithstanding the fences of wire, the
use of iron in building, the terra cotta and straw lumber, the con-
sumption of our old friend wooden lumber increased nearly oO per
cent, in the ten years from 1870 to 1880, the former being

10

DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.

12,755,543,000, and the latter 18,091,356,000 feet, and though it has
always been claimed that iron and lumber keep together — cheap
lumber accompanying cheap iron, we now find iron so low, that
producers claim they are at the lowest rung of the ladder, wliile
lumber has advanced in America in three years fully 50 per cent.,
with every prospect of still further increase ; and yet we are informed
that we are within seven years of the time when the supplies of
White Pine and Spruce (which are, in the north, the great stock of
this indispensable material) must cease ; and this is not the state-
ment of interested parties, whicli might be open to suspicion, but of
those specially employed by the Government of the country to ascer-
tain the true condition of the forests.

It will no doubt be said, ' What of this ? there are still vast forests
in the south to be drawn upon.' This may be a matter of great
value to the south, but to the people of the north, who now make
and use four-fifths of the sawed lurnhnr produced, it is a matter of
the most serious importance. The value of tlie lumber now produced
in the nortli exceeds 300,000,000 dols. a year as it falls from the saw
— that it is all wanted there is no better evidence than the fact
that demand and price are both increasing — and to replace it
would cost from two to three times this sum. even if the same lumber
could be obtained elsewhere, which it cannot be ; and 000,000,000 dols.
a year would not replace it ; so that in a very short time this section of
the country, instead of having a great and profitable industry advan-
cing and helping every interest, will be called upon to pay out hun-
dreds of millions of dollars annually for such material.

But even our southern friends are interested witli us in the preser-
vation of this timber, as the uses to which it is applied are sodilferent
from theirs that large quantities are annually sent south, and the
Government of Canada, recognising this fact, while imposing a
retaliatory duty on the White Pine, admits Southern Tine duty free.
It is further to be hoped that southern governments may loaru a
lesson froui the prodigality of the north, and preserve their most
valuable timber for the benefit and welfare of the community,
instead of giving it away to timber-land speculators, or to such an
ignorant race of destructionists, as have gobbled up the timber of the
north, or they too will soon be di3pos3e3sed of one of the greatest
blessings that Providence has vouchsafed their country.

When people talk, as they sometimes do, of the inexhaustible
forests of the south, they little know the sawing capacity of the
northern mills, which could in twelve months' time convert the whole
merchantable Pine of the states of Georgia or Alabama into lumber,
and be but six months in using that of Florida or either of tlie
Carolinas. In fact, the mind can hardly realise the enormous con-
sumption of timber going on in the United States ; but some idea
may be formed of it from a knowledge of the fact that tiie single
city of Chicago received last year over one million St. Petersburg

DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.

U

standard hundreds of sawn timber, principally White Pine, an
amount about equivalent to the entire receipts of sawn wood of
all kinds by the United Kingdom during the same period.

The entire annual consumption of wood for building and manu-
facturing purposes can now be but little short of fifty million loads.
This of itself must show the enormous destruction of forests going on
in the United States, and the serious question a loss of its timber must
have upon its future welfare. It consequently becomes, in the writer's
opinion, the greatest economic question of the day— one before which
all others sink into insignificance in comparison ; for nothing can l)e
more true than the remarks of the Cllnsgotv Herald, in review-
ing an article on the subject in 1870, when it said : ' The
knowle Jge we have gained of a dearth of cotton may help us to
apprecifite " the terribleness of the calamity that would be experienced
from a dearth of timber " in Canada and the States. In point of fact,
both Canada and the States are busy sawing from under them the
high-reachitig, fortune-makitig branch, on which, like conquerors, they
are now sitting and overlooking the world.'

When we consider the imjiortance that an abundance of the most
valuable timber has had on the past welfare of the country, and come
to realise what 'a dearth of timber' means, all will readily see that
the foregoing is by no means an overdrawn statement. If we also
consider the fact, that every human being in the country must have
timber in some form or anotlier for his protection or comfort — tliat
our shelter is of timber, the floors we walk on, the chairs we sit on,
the tables we eat from, the conveyances we use — even our cradles and
coffins being of wood — we can readily see how overwhe niingly im-
portant is this great question of timber supply. Then too, the
numerous industries engaged in the various processes toncerned in the
use of this material and the hundreds of thousands of labourers
directly depending thereupon for their livelihood prove that timber is
an article required by every individual of the whole community, and
it must be concedetl that every means should be adopted for its
preseivation and protection.

While P^igland wiiich has cheap coal, cheap iron, and cheap labour,
and which can get her supplies at the cheapest rates from the north
of Europe, annually expends nearly 100, 000, 000 dols. for timber, one
can readily recognise how much it would cost the United States (a
country that has yet to be built u))) to import its lumber from any
foreign source. It has been estimated that it would take the entire
sailing tonnage of the world to convey the amount of timber annually
consumed in America from any foreign lumber port. But where to
get it at any price in the enormous quantities used in that country is
a question that would puzzle those l)est informed on the subject to
determine.

The foregoing fully justifies the remarks contained in a leader of

12

DESTBUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.

the New York Sun when urging Congress last Winter, in the
interest of the country, to remove duties Irom Canadian lumber. In
this leader it said : —

' No more vital question can come before Congress. Perhaps no Congress has
ever been called on to decide an economic question of greater moment.'

The Province of Quebec has, to some degree, acted prudently by
restricting the cutting of Tine trees below a certain size — 12
inches at the butt on the stump ; and the policy of charging the
same timber dues on small logs as on larger ones, has similarly had
tlie effect of curtailing tlie cutting of the small Spruce trees. But in
the United States even this small measure of wise economy does not
operate, as all trees in that country, both large and small, are cut.

Tlie word ' destruction ' has in the preceding remarks been used
advisedly. American forests are not exploited as in Europe. To
remove a large trunk, sometimes filty smaller trees are cut down, and
this ruthless denudation is resoiLed to simply to save a small
amount of extra labour ; wheieas the trees needlessly felled and
the tops and brunches of the one actually required, are left to rot
on the ground, or what is worse, to lie as fuel for tlie flames when
forest fires are raging !

And respecting iorest fires, which the lumberman is constantly
parading as an excuse for his reckless cutting of timber, it may be
said that, from the condition in which the woods are left during and
after his operations, it would appear to requii-e almost the nitei'posi-
tion of Providence to prevent their burning, as they often do, in case
of an accidental spark, and of course, when they get control, cariy-
ing devastation around them ; but with proper legislation, and an
enlightened public opinion to lead Americans to look upon the tree
as one of his best friends, there should be but little danger from fire.

Moreover, if the timber-land owner wouldannudlly expend the san;e
percentage he is willing to spend to insure other property of like
value, towards putting his timber property in a sate condition, he
could so place it that it would be diHicult to set it on fire, so as to do
any serious injury.

The writer has not adverted to the climatic or other effects claimed
to be of a serious character which denudation of the forests are said
to bring upon a countiy. These matters he leaves to the elucidation
of scientific minds that better understand the subject, and can properly
treat it. The commercial aspect of the question is all he claims to
possess a knowledge of, and this he believes is of such piuamount
imr 'e that it should arrest the attention of all thinking people.

; - i,y be said that the active Ameiican mind, always ready with
expedients, would be alive to its importance ; but the truth is that the
An:erican mind has, up to the present time been devoted towards
getting rid of the timber, and in this, as in most other efforts, it has
been eminently successful ; so the question is now how to change the

DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.

r.i

current of public opinion in America from that of antagonism against
trees to tliat of appreciation of them, and in the writer's opinion this
can s )onest be brought about by constant agitation and reiteration of
the true state of the facts. Tlie formation of Forestry Associations and
the institution of ' Arbor Days/ are having excellent effects, and will
no doubt be productive of a great amount of good in this direction.

To the American, whose great aim has been how most quickly to
get rid of the forests whic' until recently, were the great obstacle
in his way in providing himself and family with a home, the familiar
refrain of 'Woodman, spare that Tree' sounded as the hollowest
mockery ; to him the rapid stroke and sharp ring of the woodman's
axe, or the thud of the forest monarch as he struck the earth in his
fall, were sounds far more pleasing to the ear. And it is only since
the railways have spanned the continent and supplied the knowledge
that his country is on the whole a prairie, and a treeless one rather
than a wooded one — that the timber is only peculiar to the coasts,
lakes, and watercourses, while the vast interior is bare of timber —
that such an idea has had a chance of claiming his attention.

Eespecting this aspect of the country, Professor Wm. H. Brewer,
in the Statistical Atlas for the Census of 1870, writing of 'The
Woodlands and Forest Systems of tiie United States,' says :—

' A glanf" he map shows large regions either treeless or very sparsely

wooded, ai -uat it is possible to cross the continent from the Pacific to the Gulf
of Mexico without passing through a forest five miles in extent, or large enough
to be indicated on the map.'

And he might also have said from the Canadian boundary line
to the same point, for he says : —

* The woodlands of the east are separated from those of the west by a broad
treeless plain from six to fifteen degrees wide.'

And again, when mentioning the ' sawed lumber ' product as 12,756
millions of feet, valued at 210 millions of dollars, he says :—

• Yet this gives but an imperfect idea of the part that wood and timber play
in the wants and industries of the people. The great majority of all the buildings
of the country are made of it, and it is an essential ingredient of nearly all those
which are nominally of brick or stone. It, too, is the principal ingredient in the
vast majority of ships, boats, cars, carriages, etc., for transportation ; so too of
our furniture, and of moat of the tools and implements in use.

'It is the sole household fuel of two-thirds of the inhabitants of the country,
and the partial fuel of nine-tenths of the remaining third. For making
steam, reducing metals and the various processes in the arts it is used in
immense quantities. Entering a.s it thus does into the multiform uses of civili-
zation, i-i every period of life from the cradle to the cotKn, a constituent
of so ma\\y of our manufactui'es, and nearly all our structures, from a match
or tooth-pi :k to the railroad or steamship, it forms an element in our needs and
our industries which cannot be reached by statistics nor expressed by figures.'

And even then he threw out the hint which has since been realised,
•when he said : —

14

DESTJiUCTlOX OF AMEHWAX FOliESTS.

'That our large timber, suitable for sawing, iHcliminisliiiig, there is noqueHtion ;
nor ia there any question that this will go on until the jirice so much riseH that
new timber will be planttd an the old is cut, and that a part of this diminution
is due to prodigal use and needless waste.'

Also referring to this snnie time (1870), Dr. Franklin 13. Kough,
Chief of Forestry in the Department at AVashington (from whose
valuable writings on the subject of Foiestry in America the writer
would have had pleasure in quoting liberally had not the lenj^th of
this article begun to alarm him), in his ' Third Keport on Forestry,'
p. 285, siiys : —

'The United States, accoi ding to the last census, 1870, had an area of woodlands
amounting to about ;jhO,00(>,000 acres of land, belonging chiefly to individuals.
It was estimated that 10,000,000 acres are destroyed annually, and that not more
than 10,000 acres are i)ianted.

' It is only in the United Slates the devastation of the forests is going on upon
an immense scale, and made in some sense the order of the day.'

Since then thirteen years have gone by, during which time the
most terrible slaughter of the forests has been kept up. The increase
of cutting for commercial purposes has more than doubled ; so that,
assuming these figures as correct, there can now remain but little
more than one-half this area of woodland, for although, owing to five
years of financial depression in the United States, from 1873 to 1878,
the consumption of wood may have fallen off during that period,
since then the onward stride has been so prodigious that the North-
western States more than doubled their production of sawn woods
from 1878 to 1882.

The 3,629 millions of 1878 become 7,552 millions in 1882, while
a similarly large increase took place in the Southern States, so that
the total cut of the United States must be now probably 50 per cent,
greater than when the census was taken for 1880 ; but, considering the
increase only 40 per cent, greater, we have for the entire cut of sawn
lumber 25,000 millions of feet board measure ; that is, more than
12,500,000 St. Petersburg standard hundreds, or 40,000,000 loads of
sawn wood alone ; and if to this is added 25 percent., to include the
squared, flatted, and round timber, the wood used in shingles, pulp,
etc., and the railway ties, fenceposts, and other forest products, we have
a total of over 50,000,000 loads of wood used in commerce, besides
the enormous amount used for fuel, etc., which was valued in 1880 at
321,962,000 dols., and which would to-day be worth not less than
400,000,000 dols. To obtain this enormous amount of material must
have required the selection of the best trees from fully 20 million
acres of land, equal to a strip of land 10 miles wide, reaching from
England to America, or more than one-fourth the area of the British
Isles.

These figures give some idea of the extent of territory denuded
annually, and I will now show the present value of this material.

The value of ' sawn lumber ' returned for census year 1880 (actually

^i 1 2 b 'f

DESTRUCTl m OF AMERICAN FORKSTS.

16

the cut of 1S70) was 2.'?3 million dols. ; adding 40 per cent, to this
for increase since then makes this amount 320 niillinns, and an in-
creased value at primary juiints of 50 per cent, makes 489 millions,
or, nay, in round nuinherf*. 500 million dols., or £100,000,000 for
sawn wood alone. Tlnjii, adding; 20 jier cent, of this value for otlier
wood products mentiunetl above, equal to 100 millions, and the value
of the firewood 400 millions, the whole makes 1,000 million dols.,
equal to £2oO,000,000 as the presimt annual value of the forest
products of tlie United States at primary points of production or
manufacture.

Moreover, the production find consumption are steadily increasing,
while the supply is as steadily diminishing; and when it is seen tliat
this manufacture now stands at the head of the Tuanufactures of the
United Suites in value, as il has hitherto done in the number of
operatives employed, and that the White fine, which has been in the
past, and is still, the most important factor in this great industry, is
rapidly approachin,*:; extinction, the writer feels that he cannot be far
astray in considering this, as regards America, what he has already
called it, the most important economic question of the day, one before
which all the others sink into insignificance in comparison.

Again, considering why Canada is especially interested in this
matter, and the advantages she may derive from prudently conducting
licr lumbering operations, and hu.sbanding her timber till her more
wealthy neighbour to the south of her may re([uirc what she lias to
spare, it may be remarked that it is tliat section of the country nearest
to her (winch now uses nearly the whoh; of the supplier., of White
Pine and Spruce) which will be soonest short of timber, and also, in ad-
dition to what it may receive from (Janada, it will no doubt be comp(!lled
to make heavy drafts on the Southern States for its Pitcli i'ine, called
in America V^iUow Pine, as American White I'ine is, by some com-
mercial absurdity, called in England Yellow j'ino ; while the writer
is informed that the White Pine of Cilreat P)ritain is not a Pine,
White, H.ed, or Yellow, but a Spruce.

This Southern Yellow (Pitch) Pine, howc\'er, owing to this con-
fusion in names, is thought by some to make a '^ub.stitute for the
Northern White Pine ; but this cannot be, for the woods are most
dissimilar. The Southt-rn Pine, although an excellent w 'od for many
purposes, is hard and resinous, aliout the same weight as White Oak,
or nearly double that of iMther the White Tine or Spruce.

The 'White Pine, Spruce, Hemlock, and Cedars form the bulk of
the light woods of America, and it is probably owing to this cha-
racteristic that the White Pine and Spruce, notwithstanding their
origuial great abundance, are so rapidly becoming exhau.sted, for, being
light and easily floated, they are taken with but little difficulty from
the most remote sections of the countiy. wherever water-courses
fxist.

16

DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.

It mi;;ht be well to remark, as opinions appear to prevail in some
quarters that the area of the White Pine in (.'anada is of very ^reat
extent, that it covers bnt a limited area. That this is the fact is
shown by Dr. Bell, Assistant Dirertor of the Geoloj^ical Survey of
Canada, in the Report of the Survey for 1880, in which he says,
respectinfj the White Pine — ' Yellow Pine ' of the British Markets —

'This aiul the next species have so nearly tlie biime limit throughout the
greater part i)f their northward range, that they are reprefiented on the
map both l>y one line. The Red Pine, howevei', does not extend so far east
aH the White, HO that in this direction tin' line represents only the boundary
of the hitter. Contrary to popular belief, the W'liite I'ine i.s conlined to
a comparatively Hinall part of the Dominion, as will })e observed by an
ini*])et:tion of the map. Its northern limit in Canada extends east as fai' an
Min<:;an, while to the west it does not reach Lake VVinnipej;, or Ked Kiver.
It reaches il« lowest latitude opoosite to Ottawa City, about 4^^^*, and its
liighest, about •")2", in the Lonely Ljike region. It ocou-s in fa vocu-able situations
throughout the greater part of Newfoundland, but it i.s of best <puility and moat
abundant along the (iSander and Exploit Rivers op the; north, and the Humber on
the west side of the island. On the l.ist-nanied stream, I iiave cut into the centres
of several good-sized trees, and found the woo<l of excellent ipiality. In the country
immediately north of Lake St. .Fohn, the Messrs. Prii-e have cut large (piaiitities
of Hue White Pine tindjer for export. When coming from Lake Mista.ssini to
Ottawa, by way of the Gatineau River, Mr. Richardson, of the Geological Survey,
first met this specie.s at 2.^0 miles noi-th of that city. It (.ccui-s of fair si/e on the
head watei-s of all the primiipal branches of the ^[oos(> River, and in former times
is .said to have extended considerably furtlier north along these streams ; bnt having
been entirely desti'oyed by extensive forest tires, it has b»^en rt-placed l>v otliei-
trees. Owing to the.se fires it is now very scarce in mo.st of the region north of
Lake Superior, but small groves of it have been observed as far north aa repre-
sented. Tt is scattered over the country between Lake Superior and the VVinnijwg
River and ii round Lonely I^ake, bvit it is of rather small size. In approaching
Lake Winnipeg tlie limiting line of this tree curves south-we.stward, and ci-os«ei»
the Winnipeg River about iiftei'ii mi les above Fort Alexander, and then runs south
to the Unitei'c States at some ilistance east of lied River.'

In llie foregoing remarks the writer lias given the views of those in
America in wiiose opinions he has the greatest confidence ; and liow-
ever much they may conflict with tlie preconceived notions of others,
he believes them to be true.

But even if it took seventeen years instead of seven to use up the
whole of the Wliite Piijc of tlie United States, or fifty yeurs insteai.1
of twenty to U'se up the whole forests, the matter would have been
sufliciently serious to justify him in calling public attention to the*

facts.

William Ijtti.k. i