Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/606

588 Computations have been made, from time to time, by competent persons, including our efficient forestry chief, Prof. Fernow, of the number of cubic feet of wood of all kinds annually used by our people for all purposes. Into these I do not propose to enter. It must suffice to say that the total annual consumption has been variously estimated at from four to eight million acres of woodland. Forest fires are responsible for ten million acres more, or nearly double all other causes combined.

The United States east of the Mississippi contains about five-hundred million acres. Assuming one half to be timbered land, and that ten million acres cover the actual annual consumption and destruction, our woodlands will practically last only another quarter of a century.

A peculiar feature about this excessive depletion of our forests is the wasteful and improvident manner in which it has been accomplished. Nowhere else has such waste been witnessed. Lands have been so cheaply obtained, and their resources have appeared so boundless, that it seems hardly to have occurred that there could be any limit. Not only have no means been resorted to for renewal of the woodlands, but all who have had to do with the forests—whether lumber barons or poor settlers—alike have looked to personal gain, with no regard to the future. Especially has this been the case with lumbermen in the pine districts. A noble pine tree is felled; one, two, or three saw logs are cut off, and the remainder left to litter the woods and to decay. Nor have the unsold Government lands escaped. Universally have these been plundered, as if Uncle Sam had no rights in his forest domain which his family were bound to respect. Nor has it been easy, if possible, to exact justice against plunderers, for juries will seldom convict, and are likely themselves to be particeps criminis. Besides, the law, or at least custom, allows settlers to take whatever timber they need for their buildings and fences, and the question is seldom asked where sawmills in a sparse community obtain their supplies.

Forest fires have accompanied the lumbermen, and it will be observed that the most extensive and disastrous ones have occurred in the pine districts. Nature's records show that before the advent of the white settler fires often swept the prairies and oak openings, and doubtless the peculiar character of these is largely due to this fact. The Indians were hunters, and the needs of the chase were met by the annual burning of the grass, which harbored game while it hindered the chase. Usually the damage to timber thus occasioned was but little, though in the course of years many a fine tree succumbed to repeated attacks. But the Indians never ruthlessly destroyed the woodlands. The white hunter, too, who roamed the woods before they were