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Show 5-n-zr-H-M--rnijr25-r- Forest Fires and Lands Not Growing Trees Are Threats to Prosperity By C. L. PACK, President American Forestry Asa'n. 5iSIiii jfjf!pii Tlirentening the future prosperity of the country k aro "wo 'CIn8 our ycar'y 'osc8 from forest fires miWf ' i,H and our hundreds of millions of acres of forest lands ' ft iB J-BBr'-Sil wn,'ch ar0 nt growing forests. Just what this mean; 1- ?Wl5' to big industries is shown in the thrce-million-dollar- Ar r ' S7 BmMW a"'cnr freight bill New England pays on imported Hp lumber because of the idle acres close to her factory Tm doors. The lumber cut in the state of New York hat iJB dropped almost 60 per cent since 1910. Her consumer sSPHV of lumber are paying $GG,000,000 a year for imported lumber. The imported lumber comes 3,000 miles by rail. As a result nearly 1,500 wood-using industries in the state of New York havo closed up shop. Two million feet of timber, or material enough to build a five-room house every hundred feet on both sides of a road extending from New Yorjt to Chicago is destroyed by forest firca every year. With four people to a house, these one hundred thousand or more buildings would provide a home for nearly one-fourth of our yearly incrcaso in population a number num-ber sufficient to populate a now city each year the size of Cincinnati, New Orleans, Minneapolis, Kansas City or Seattle. During the past five years more than 160,000 forest fires have occurred oc-curred in tho United States, 80 per cent of which were due to human agencies and therefore preventable. These conflagrations burned over 50,488,000 acres an area greater than that of either Ohio or Pennsylvania and destroyed $85,700,000 worth of timber. |