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Show j TIMBER IN THE UNITED STATES. ii The Chicago Herald of Wednesday I last has the following article on the ques- r tion of pine in the United States. As it ' is a question of great importance and one t iu which the people of Utah are very i ; much interested, we reproduce the article i- lor their benefit ; . I A statement recently issued from the for- f cstry division of the Agricultural Depart- ment 6hows that at the present rate of con- ? unmption the pine forests of the United 1 j States will be exhausted in from twenty to !i j twenty-five vears. Michigan, the principal ' 8 lumber producing State in the Union, had ' I 150,O00,O0J,O00 feet of standing pine when the first saw was turned there, and the i amount now left is estimated at 35,000,000,000 I feet, though it is doubtful if so much re- mains. Vrom all parts of the timber dis-h dis-h trict the reports are the same. The cut is 15 i wasteful in the extreme, and no effort is i made to preserve any" part of the- timber n which cannot be immediately worked up into ! t boards for the market, j AVhen these twenty or twenty-five years j ! have passed there will be a tremendous out- i j cry in favor of free trade in lumber, and no r one will interpose any objection. The pine l log and pine land barons will have uiado ' their fortunes, and, having no more timber ! ! at home, they will be supremely indifferent j' on the subject of taxing Canadian products. I : The country will then pay what the outside I I manufacturer chooses to ask. For the sev-' sev-' onty-five years -during which it saw its own ! i forests destroyed it will have paid exactlv i ' what its own tariff-protected lumbermen " chose to demand. It will be as helpless in j : - one case as in the other, for there will be no j more competition under the coming condi- i; tions than there has been under those now 1 1 existing. ; The corrupt and selfiuh protective tariff U policy which has exhausted our forests that a few hundred men might become million- l sires, end which will soon hand ns over to i's the tender mercies of outsiders, is what the - present generation and t he one t hat preceded it have been in the habit of calling "states-manship.,, "states-manship.,, The generations that are to come wiU use a different word in describing it, for it has been the most reckless, vicious and destructive that ever was pursued by a civilized government. |
