. In a few years the supplies of
marketable lumber in that region were considerably reduced. Then
the westward trail was resumed. The strip of country between the
Mississippi River and the Cascade, Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges
was combed and cut. Today, the last big drive against our timber
assets is being waged in the forests of the Pacific Coast.

Our virgin forests originally covered 822,000,000 acres. Today,
only one-sixth of them are left. All the forest land now in the
United States including culled, burned and cut-over tracts,
totals 463,000,000 acres. We now have more waste and cut-over
lands in this country than the combined forest area of Germany,
Belgium, Denmark, Holland, France, Switzerland, Spain and
Portugal. The merchantable timber left in the United States
is estimated at 2,215,000,000,000 board feet. The rest is
second-growth trees of poor quality. One-half of this timber is
in California, Washington and Oregon. It is a long and costly
haul from these Pacific Coast forests to the eastern markets.
Less than one-fifth of our remaining timber is hardwood.
56,000,000,000 board feet of material of saw timber size are used
or destroyed in the United States each year. Altogether, we use
more than 26,000,000,000 cubic feet of timber of all classes
annually. Our forests are making annual growth at the rate of
less than one-fourth of this total consumption. We are rapidly
cutting away the last of our virgin forests. We also are cutting
small-sized and thrifty trees much more rapidly than we can
replace them.

[Illustration: A FOREST CROP ON ITS WAY TO THE MARKET]

The United States is short on timber today because our fathers
and forefathers abused our forests. If they had planted trees on
the lands after the virgin timber was removed, we should now be
one of the richest countries in the world in forest resources.
Instead, they left barren stretches and desolate wastes where
dense woods once stood. It is time that the present owners of the
land begin the reclamation of our 326,000,000 acres of cut-over
timberlands. Some of these lands still are yielding fair crops of
timber due to natural restocking and proper care. Most of them
are indifferent producers. One-quarter of all this land is bare
of forest growth. It is our duty as citizens of the United States
to aid as we may in the reforestation of this area.

Fires are cutting down the size of our forests each year. During
a recent five-year period, 160,