Development in lumbering industries.
Some classes of timber have doubled in price in five years, while others have taken twice as long to experience a like increase in price. In spite of the many substitutes for wood, its consumption is increasing at the rate of about 3 per cent per capita per annum, the quantity now used being about three hundred and fifty cubic feet per capita in America ; and forty cubic feet in Germany and fourteen cubic feet in England, where substitutes for wood are largely employed.
That the demand for timber will continue to increase can not be doubted when we are reminded that, besides consumption for many other purposes, in lumber and pulp timber alone we clear an area of good virgin forest every year as large as the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island ; for boxes and crates, 50,000 acres ; for matches, 400 acres ; for shoe-pegs, 3,500 acres of good second-growth hard-wood ; for lasts and boot-trees, 10,000 acres ; while for fuel we require 17,971,200 acres, or four and one-half times the area of Connecticut and Rhode Island. These are examples of large and small consumption, the intermediate uses being almost indeterminate.
The adaptation of the inferior woods to new uses has led to the convenience of a local though small market, where a timber-owner may dispose of material that he does not need or which is ill adapted to his purpose, and at the same place he may secure building materials that better meet his requirements. The difference in price of that sold and that purchased is necessary, considering the perishable and combustible character of the goods, the long hauls, and the freight rates, all of which must ultimately be met by the consumer.
Literature.
Nearly all forestry books contain advice on har vesting. Following are a few useful references : Schlich, A Manual of Forestry ; Gayer, Forstbe nutzung, eighth edition ; Ribbentrop, Forestry in British India ; Nisbet, The Forester, Vol. II ; C. A. Schenck, Forest Utilization ; William F. Fox, A History of the Lumber Industry in the State of New York, Bulletin No. 34, United States Forest
Service ; J. E. Defenbaugh, History of the Lumber Industry of America. The Woodsman's Handbook, Part I, Bulletin No. 36, Bureau of Forestry, Wash ington, D. C.; Forest Mensuration, by Henry Solon Graves, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1906 ; Rules and Specifications for the Grading of Lum ber, Bulletin No. 71, Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture ; Grades and Amount of Lumber Sawed from Yellow Poplar, Yellow Birch, Sugar Maple and Beech, Bulletin No. 73, Forest Service.
Insect Enemies of Woodlot Trees. Figs. 488 491.
By A. D. Hopkins.
The insect enemies of trees in the woodlot differ with the section of country and the kind of trees rep resented. In the New England states, the woodlot may consist of almost pure stands of white pine, mixed spruce, pine, birch and the like, maple, oak and hickory ; farther south it may consist of pure stands of scrub pine, pitch pi ne, black locust, or mixed hard-wood, yellow poplar, walnut, beech, chestnut ; in the south Atlantic and gulf states it may be loblolly or long-leaf pine, sweet gum or mixed hard woods; north of the gulf states it may be mixed hardwoods, woods, with oak, hickory, lo cust, box elder or cottonwood p r e dominating ; in the Rocky moun tain region it may be pine, spruce, aspen or cotton wood ; toward the Pacific coast, scrub oak, live oak, pine or redwood ; in the North west it will consist of a different class of trees, growing under very different conditions from those found in any other section of country.
Each tree and each section of the country has its peculiar class of insects, requiring special methods of control. It is readily seen to be impracticable to discuss in a short treatise even the more impor tant insect enemies of the farmers' woodlots in all sections of the country. If we take one section, however, we may give some general information on the character and extent of the depredations by a few of the principal and more widely distributed enemies, and methods for their control.