1 ( 43 )
2 APPENDIX F.
3 Note on Forests in the United States, translated from “ Revue des Eaux et Foréts Annales Forestiéres.”
4 For the past thirty years constant attention has been drawn by economists to the impo-
5 verished state of France in the matter of timber, and to the necessity there is of reproduc-
6 ing timber of large dimensions Unfortunately there exists in the public mind a very
7 eae but erroneous, idea in the matter, which has hitherto prevented any serious notice
8 eing takon of the warnings given. ‘The general impression is, that foreign countries, and
9 especially America, will yet for a very long time furnish inexhaustible supplies of timber.
10 We propose to show what are the actual resources of the forests of the United States, and how
11 Ball a hope there is that they will in the future provide the wants of the old world. Our
12 information is drawn from the official correspondence of the American Government.
13 When the first Europeans established themselves on the American coast, they were con-
14 fronted by impenetrable forests, which for a long time presented serious obstacles to progress
15 in colonization. Fifty years ago forest tracts in the United States were out of all proportion
16 to the requirements of a thinly scattered population. Means of transport for timber to
17 distant ports did not exist; the forests were a real nuisance; and the destruction of them
18 appeared to be a necessity to the then growing population.
19 War was waged against the forests with inconceivable animosity, and so effectually, that
20 the invaders have reached the extremity of these forests, which were reported to be im-
21 penetrable, leaving only a few scattered trees to mark their former existence; and at the present
22 time they find themselves confronted by an immense desert without trees, extending from
23 the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains,—a tract which is equal in extent to the area of
24 Central Isurope.
25 Thus, then, there remains at the presont time only a remnant of the former forests, and
26 this is daily decreasing before the ever morensing population and the consumption of planters
27 who are gradually clearing vast tracts around them.
28 At the present time the scarcity of forests in the country is being felt very seriously
29 by all classes of the American population, whereas formerly it was not felt at all; now
30 there is au immense population and large consumption, whereas formerly there was only a
31 small destructive population.
32 Thus the American people, who at first imagined that their existence and progress were
33 incompatible with the existence of forests, nro now forced by experience to learn that they
34 can neither exist nor prosper without forests.
35 With the exception of the mountainous regions in the Alleghanies and Blue Mountains,
36 almost all the vast expanse of country from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mussissippi has been
37 clenred of the primeval forests. All the arable lands have been cleared, and the rooky
38 and steep tracts alone remain forest clad.
39 Actual waste is now no doubt much less than it used to be, but actual consumption of
40 timber has increased in large proportions. It must be remembered that in truth -the forests
41 of the Alloghanies have had to meet the requirements of an ever-increasing population (from
42 3 to 38 millions), and that the stock of large timber, which appeared at one time to be inox-
43 hauetible, has been devastated by the original settlers. It is a fact that three-fourths of these
44 mountain stocks do not now exist; the demand for timber is already beyond production, and
45 the consuming population has rapidly risen from 38 to 50 millions. In another fifty years
46 under the present system the forests of the United States will be exhausted, and will scarcely
47 meet local consumption. To br convinced on this point it is only necessary to pass in review
48 tho various stutes with reference to the existing forests in them. The states of Munine,
49 Michigan, Minesota, and Florida, are the only ones to the east of the Mississippi in which
50 exports aro greater than tho imports; but their stocks, which have been accumulating in the
51 forests for centuries, are decreasing rapidly, and one can already foresee that in a few years
52 the produce will be absorbed by local wants.
53 In Contral America (Arkansas, Missourie, Nebraska, &c.,), there are only occasional
54 soattered topes of trees along the banks of stroums; these are unable to meet local con-
55 sumption, and tho surplus required for use is drawn from tho states of Michigan, Wisconsin,
56 and Muinesota.
57 The states situated between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific are still stocked with
58 fine and important forests, but the produce of these is not greater than is required to meet
59 the wants of a population always on the icreasy by means of immigration.