Every reduction of the lumber traffic which helps support our railroads, or of their supply of poles, ties and car material, tends to raise the cost of our groceries and other rail-transported commodities.
SCHOOL LANDS
Most of our western states have immense areas of forested grant lands, the sale of timber from which supports the public schools and other state institutions. Destruction of this asset is a direct blow to these institutions which can be only partially met by increased taxation.
THE FARMER HAS THE MOST AT STAKE
In the case of western agriculture, the relation to the forest is fundamental and inseparable. Enough has been said to show that because of its importance as a sustaining industry lumber manufacture is a prodigious factor in creating a market for farm products, also that the cost of all articles used by the farmer is cheapened by forest preservation. But back of this lies the all-important dependence of western agriculture upon irrigation. We must save the forests that store the waters.
Of particular significance to the farmer, too, is the tremendous importance of forests as a source of tax revenue to help support state and county government. The cost of government is growing as our population grows. Taxable property grows mainly in the cities. Elsewhere we confront the problem of diminishing timber to tax and consequent heavier and heavier burden on farm property. It will be a bad situation for the farmer if the timber is all destroyed and he has to pay all the taxes, as well as a higher price for his buildings, fences and fruit boxes. Every acre of timber burned or wasted hastens this day.
The conservation thus suggested does not mean non-use of ripe timber, but does mean protecting it from useless waste and destruction, and replacing it by reforestation when it is used.
CONDITIONS OF LIFE THE REAL ISSUE INVOLVED
Lack of space forbids recounting many other ways in which the forest question touches the average citizen. It enters into our prospects of development, our investment values and our insurance rates. Like the keystone of an arch, or the link of a chain, forests cannot be destroyed without the collapse of the entire fabric. Their preservation is not primarily a property question, but a principle of public economy, dealing with one of the elements of human existence and progress. Failure to treat it as such means harder conditions of life, a handicap of industry; not only for our children, but for us as well.
It all sums up to this: On every acre of western forest destroyed by fire, or that fails to grow where it might grow, we, the citizens of the West who are not lumbermen, bear fully eighty per cent of the direct loss and sustain serious further injury to our general safety and profit.