Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1874 — The Destruction of Forests. [ARTICLE]

The Destruction of Forests.

The constant and reckless destruction of our forests is fast bringing JjM to a condition in which there will •Occasion for real alarm. It is not pmbable that any “scare” like that years ago went over England, concerning the prospective exhaustion t>f her coal supply, will immediately occttr im JLmeiica touching the joss of onir forests, but we wish something near enough approaching it might happen to stop a work that is full of evil promise. In the whole United States there is left but one really great tract of timber. It lies at the far extreme of our country, and consists of about one-half of Washington Territory and a third of Oregon. California has, perhaps, 500,000 acres of forest, of which fully one-half has been cut away within the last two or three years. Here in New York we have no considerable forest left except in the Adirondack region. Our wealth of maple, walnut and hickory is substantially gone, and a large part of it has been wantonly destroyed. Wisconsin had a magnificent forest growth, but the people are sweeping it away at a rapid rate. One billion feet of timber were cut in a single veai. It will not take more than a decade or two at the utmost to fairly exhaust this souree of wealth to the State. Michigan and Minnesota are following in the same course, slashing away at their forests as if a tree had no right to lift its head. One of our most intelligent army officers, Gen. Brisbin, who knows the Western country thoroughly, and to whose accurate knowledge of this subject we are indebted for many facts, says that 50,000 acres of Wisconsin timber are cut annually to supply the Kansas and Nebraska markets alone. The Saginaw forests are even now practically destroyed, and if the Northern Pacific Railway is built it will open up to the ax the one remaining belt of American timber, in Oregon and Washington Territory. The railroads have been the great destroyers of our forests. They use 160,000,000 of ties annually—that means the leveling of at least 150,000 acres of trees. The timber they use, also, is not the refuse or the inferior, but among the very best fine young trees eight to ten inches in diameter. The Union Pacific Company undertook at first to lay their road with cottonwood ties, drawn from the occasional wooded canons along the line of the _road. One consequence of this was shown in our Washington dispatch the other day regarding the legislation to be asked of Congress for the relief of the road. The Government Comjnission appointed to examine the line reported that it, was not completed within the terms of the law. The use of these soft-wood ties was held by them to be an evasion of contract, and Government patents for the lands granted along two or three hundred miles of the road have accordingly been refused. The settlers who have bought the lands can get no titles from the company, for it has none. This looks bad for our forests, since it means the ultimate destruction of thousands of acres of more good timber to replace the condemned ties which have already swept off a large part of the few precious growths of this comparatively treeless region. 14 it is remembered that ties have to be renewed every seven years the extent of the demand on our forests will be appreciated. When 10,000 miles more of rails have been laid it will require all the trees in the country to supply the demand for ties. Fences are also enormous consumers of trees. In the East we are learning in this regard economy from necessity, but in the West, in some States, the fanners cut down the forests with scarcely more thought than they harvest their grain. The fences of the United States, people may not generally know, have cost more than the lands, and are to-day the most valuable class of property, save railroads and real estate in cities. Illinois alone has $2,000,000 invested in fences, and they cost annually $175,000 for repairs. In Nebraska, where excellen ’herd laws are in force, the necessity foi fences has been so much lessened that the fences of the State cost less in proportion to population than in any othqr in the Union. The outrageous waste of timber Gaused by the felling of forests and the burning of the trees to bring the land under cultivation still goes on at a fearful rate. From 1860 to 1870 no less than 12,000,000 acres of forest were thus wantonly destroyed. For fuel also vast tracts are leveled of their trees. It took 10,000 acres of forest to supply Chicago with fuel one year, 1871. Our annual decrease of forest from all these causes is not far from 8,000,000 acres. Yet we plant only 10,000 acres of new forest a year. The necessity for a commission of forestry and the need of efficient laws , in Ail the States for the preservation of our forests need no further argument than these facts.— N. 7. Times. ‘