These great logs make the finest of lumber, some of which is carried by trains across the continent to towns in states that border the Atlantic. Ships carry it from San Fran cisco, Portland and Seattle, and (Fig. 109) to South America and South Africa, to cities across the Pacific, and often through the Panama Canal to New York and to Europe. Thus you see what a great task it is to get lumber from where it grows to other places that have no lum ber, or at least not enough.
97. European lumber and lumber trade.— In Northern Europe, in Nor way, Sweden, and Finland (see Fig. 315), there is a large section of rough, cold country like that around our Great Lakes and East ern Highlands. Here, too, men go to the woods in the winter time, and cut down trees for lumber, and when the ice is gone in the spring, hundreds of ships sail away with cargoes of lumber to western and southern Europe, and even to South Africa.
98. The need of caring for forests.—In the United States lumbermen have cut down entire forests over many thousands of miles. This method of lumbering is wasteful, and has made lumber scarce and its price high. People have
also been careless and let forest fires burn up mil lions of trees. Each fall you read about many such fires in the Northwest.
The United States De partment of Forestry is trying to stop these fires, and it is also planting new forests in many parts of our country, and in some places is using the same method for keeping our old forests that people in Europe use. Long ago France, Germany and Switzerland found their lumber becoming so scarce that they set aside some parts for forests. Each year in these forests men called foresters mark the trees which are to be cut down. The rest of the trees go on growing till they also are large enough to be cut. Young trees are planted each year. Thus the forests are kept growing and the people are never without lumber.
Wood is used in so many ways that we cannot do without lumber. Most of our paper even is made from wood. Look around you and see how many things in the room came from the forest. Tell of other wcoden things that you have seen. Could you get along easily without them?