Forest Facts

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 18, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 32.

In their original condition the forests of the United States exceeded in the quantity and variety of their timber the forests of any other region of similar size on the globe. To the eyes of the pioneers they were an inexhaustible resource. Only within recent years has the fact of their destructibility been emphasized to the public ear.

In pursuit of the crusade for the forests the Department of Agriculture has just issued a pamphlet showing the present state of the trees. That an original forest acreage of 850,000,000 has been reduced to not more than 550,000,000 by cutting, clearing, and fire, is the first impressive statement. These figures show less strikingly what destruction has been wrought, however, than does the declaration that where was once a total stand of 5,200 billion feet of saw timber, there remains a stand of only 2,500 billion feet. The forests have been reduced by thirty-five per cent, the stand by fifty-two per cent.

We are cutting our forests three times as fast as they grow. We take 250 cubic feet of wood per capita annually from our forests, where Germany takes but thirty-seven cubic feet, and France but twenty-five. Germany has learned the lesson of forest renewal, with no better soil or stock than ours.

Even on an acreage reduced another 100,000,000 by the opening of new farms, as much wood as a population much greater than our present one will really need can be maintained by proper forestation. —New York World.