Our National Forests

Our National Forests - A Short Popular Account of the Work of the United States Forest Service on the National Forests

The forest problem is, both locally and nationally, of vital internal importance. Not only is woodthe chief product of the forestindispensable to our daily life, but the forest plays an important rle in regulating stream flow, thereby reducing the severity of floods and preventing erosion. For these reasons the preservation of forests ceases to be a problem of private or individual concern, but forthwith becomes a governmental problem, or, at best, an enterprise which should be jointly controlled by the National Government and the individual States. Our Consumption of Wood. It is often said that wood enters into our daily life from the time we are born until we diefrom the cradle to the coffin. It is difficult to imagine a civilization without wood. In our country in a single year we use 90,000,000 cords of firewood, nearly 40,000,000,000 feet of lumber, 150,000,000 railroad ties, nearly 1,700,000,000 barrel staves, 445,000,000 board feet of veneer, over 135,000,000 sets of barrel headings,[xiv] over 350,000,000 barrel hoops, over 3,300,000 cords of native pulp wood, 170,000,000 cubic feet of round mine timbers, nearly 1,500,000 cords of wood for distillation, over 140,000 cords for excelsior, and nearly 3,500,000 telephone and telegraph poles. In short, we take from our forests yearly, including waste in logging and manufacture, more than twenty-two billion cubic feet of wood valued at about $1,375,000,000. This is enough lumber to construct seven board walks twenty-five feet wide from the earth to the moon, a distance of about 240,000 miles, or a board walk one-third of a mile wide completely around the earth at the equator. These figures give a little idea of the enormous annual drainage upon the forests of the United States and immediately suggest an important reason that led to the establishment of our National Forests. The Lumber Industry. Measured by the number of persons employed, lumbering is the country's largest manufacturing industry. In its 48,000 saw mills it employs more than 600,000 men. Its investment in these plants is over $1,000,000,000, and the investment in standing timber is $1,500,000,000 more. This industry furnishes[xv] the railroads a traffic income of over $200,000,000 annually. If we include in these statistics also the derived wood products, we find that over 1,000,000 wage earners are employed, and that the products and derived products are valued at over $2,000,000,000 annually. Most certainly we are dealing with a very large business enterprise. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 42391
Author: Boerker, Richard H. D. (Richard Hans Douai)
Release Date: Mar 23, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English