Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/631

 1869.] Our Fine Resources. 507 "inexhaustible mines," or our "inex- haustible forests," as it is to mention the most every-day circumstance, or assert the most trite fact. The term can certainly never be cor- rectly applied to any thing human or mundane. There is no one thing, or series of things, in this world, that will never become exhausted ; nor is it right, that there should be. All-wise Provi- dence has placed us here to work out — not waste — the resources, which He has placed at our command; and while He has shown us, by His own example, that we are to let " nothing be lost," our own past experience has proved that natural productions, which we had regarded as indispensable, have given out ; and we have been compelled to apply other sub- stances to those purposes, for which we thought nothing but the exhausted pro- duction adapted. Our timber, which is regarded as un- limited in supply, is so perceptibly de- creasing, and facts point so strongly towards its exhaustion, that it is at last beginning to excite some attention ; and a number of arguments pro and con have made their appearance. We have no right to presume, that Providence is going to raise up a new commodity for us, to take the place of timber, when our own prodigality shall have rendered it extinct. It is our duty to use our means economically, and to foster our resources ; and, to that end, we should take active and immediate measures to insure the preservation and replenishment of our forests. It is true, that the mere saying aud advising will accomplish nothing; but we think, that a few figures and statis- tics, which tell "the plain, unvarnished truth," and into which no spirit of hy- perbole enters, may not be amiss. The great West, with its millions of acres of forest lands, stretching its vast expanse from the coast of Lake Michi- gan, and the western bounds of Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, far out, to- wards the setting sun, presents quite a.s great a field for wonder and admiration, as do the more eastern portions of our country, with their hundreds of thou- sands of factories and workshops, and their busy millions of human beings. Some years ago, it was said by a wri- ter of much discrimination : "America is one vast forest, diversified occasionally by cultivated intervals ;" showing how, at that time, to one whose observation was general, the cultivated and manu- facturing portions of the country ap- peared as the exception to the rule — the j>atches which an increasing popu- lation had cut out of the main field, and not the field itself. But how greatly have circumstances, occurring since the utterance of the above assertion, tended to modify it. It undoubtedly applies, with great force, to a large proportion of our area ; but, if taken literally, as applied to our present condition, it is calculated to mislead many, with regard to the great- ness of our timber lands. It is true, moreover, that, notwith- standing our enormous resources in this respect, there is an absolute necessity, that we should foster and protect our timber. Without going into any calcu- lation, it may be safe to say, that more Lumber has been cut within the past fifteen years, than during the previous half century ; and that more will be cut in the next five years, than in the past fifteen. An acceptance of these hypo- theses forces the conviction upon our minds, that, though our resources were trebled, we could not afford to be ex- travagant, in the face of the rapidly augmenting number of immigrants, who must find themselves homes in the great West, and of the large annual percent- ages of increase in our native popula- tion. A writer upon this subject in 1862, endeavored to give his readers an idea of the consumption of Lumber, bj' show- ing that " it requires some thirty acres, of good ship-timber, to build a common- sized steamboat on our lakes." He