g
timber will have been regulated by the same influence.

It is true that at present the cost of lumber to the consumer is not
fixed absolutely even by the cost of manufacturing and selling it,
and that on the contrary it fluctuates greatly with the willingness
of the consumer to buy. But this, except within limits, is not a
sound working out of the law of supply and demand. It is an incident
to the unsound basis of production which still prevails. So long
as a very large portion of our standing timber has not cost the
owner much in either price, protection, taxes and interest, some
of it will be put on the market at a low price in order to carry
a milling business through a depressed period, to realize money,
or for other exigency reasons. So may a wheat grower lose money on
one or two years' crops. But if in the long run the world refuses
to pay for wheat what it costs to grow it, wheat will not be grown.
The real question is whether or not the world needs forests enough
to pay for them.

DEMAND WILL CONTINUE

It is evident, from the history of older countries, that it does.
While consumption per capita will undoubtedly decrease, population
is growing. Substitution will be necessary, but will not supplant
wood for a multitude of purposes. Much has been said about the use
of steel, concrete and like materials in building. The building
trades only use 60 per cent of our lumber today, without considering
fuel. It is unlikely that the reduction of this percentage will
very much more than offset the growth in volume of the reduced
percentage due to increased population. Fifty years ago there was
scarcely a lumber user west of the Mississippi river. We know the
settlements, mines, railroads and cities that have developed since
to use lumber. It is a poor Westerner who doubts that the next fifty
years will see a far greater development. _And the Panama Canal
is coming, with the certain result of making our fast-producing
forests able to compete successfully with Eastern and European
forest crops grown with less natural advantage._

Moreover, we now use three and a half times as much wood a year
as our forests produce. _Consequently the demand might even fall
off three and a half times and still consume the product._ And
the forest producing area diminishes constantly. Little as we now
consider the possibilities of food famine, history shows that nations
rapidly increase to the limit of their agricultural production
or