A TIMBER FAMINE IN AMERICA

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2552, 17 November 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A TIMBER FAMINE IN AMERICA

Whim Austria seems to be increasing her forests, their value becoming greater every year, it appears that in America a wood famine is within measurable d'stance unless prompt measures are taken to avert suoh a catastrophe. From the latest report of the Government on Ontario, it is estimated that the timber in the United States is only equal to a supply of about SO years ; at the end of which period supplies, it is said, will have to be got from Canada. But, according to the Clerk of Forestry, it seems that there will soon be a wood famine in Ontario and in the other Canadian provinces if the clearing away of wood and forest land for agricultural purposes continues at the present rate, and the consumption of wood for fuel and the forest fires go on. Not only this, but the fertility of the land in dis-forosted regions is diminished by tho artifical changes occasioned. "Fifty years ago," writes the Clerk of Forestry, "the sun rose on a different America. The great prairie country was an interminable sea of waving grass, the northern region largely a forest. All this is now changed. The forests to the south arc diminished to comparative nothingness ; and a, great expanse to the south, the west, and the north-west, large enough to make half a dozen European kingdoms, has been turned with the plough, and the ponds, streams, and sloughs largely drained. The result is well known ; our harvests are diminished, and our prosperity decreased." Steps are being taken in Ontario, as in other parts of Canada, to diminish, this evil by planting trees judiciously, but, as it is remarked, very much remains to be done before replanting can to any extent counteract the evils occasioned by the over-clearing hitherto practised throughout all North America where settlement has occurred.