Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1911 — Largest Users and Greatest Wasters of Wood Products. [ARTICLE]

Largest Users and Greatest Wasters of Wood Products.

In an address prepared by Prof. Maßon B. Thomas, of Wabash College, and delivered at the recent meeting of the State Federation of Commercial Clubß, the professor, among other things, savs: “We are the largest users of wood per capita of any nation on the globe and the greatest wasters. From every acre of forest out over, but one-third of the product is put ou the market, the balance is wasted. Our per capita consumption is 260 cubic feet, while in Germany it is 37 and in France 25. We are cutting yearly nearly three and one-half times as mnch forest as we raise and in addition to this, losing $50,000,000 annually by fire, S4O, 000,000 by decay, and $100,000,000 from insects. Not only are we wasting our forest, but the few that remain are growing but 12 cubic feet per year on each acre, while the well-regulated forests of Europe yield from 48 to 65 cubip feet aud we could do as well. It is not surprising that the price of lumber has advanced in the last ten years more than twice as much as the average increase in all other commodities. It should make any one think when a piece of cabinet work, that fifteen years ago cost the price of one day’s labor, now costs the amount from six days* labor, due to the advance in tbe cost of white pine. “It is for our own state, however, that I am to speak. Of the 18,933,046 acres originally In forest, but 1,227,141 now remain, and but little of this has been unspoiled by the woodsman’s ax. Up until 1880, when 4,336,161 acres remained, practically all the clearing had been in the Interests of agriculture, but since that time the waste lands of the state have Jncreaaed in about the same proportion as the forest area has decreased. We hare passed Che danger line and the revenue from timber now cut, means a sacrifice in impoverished agricultural lands."