The American people are a prodigal folk. They have looked upon their resources as inexhaustible, their lands as unlimited. They have called upon all nations to come, and to all comers they have given lands, mines, timber, water-power. Has this course been right? Up to a point in our development, yes; of late, no—most emphatically NO! These resources are entrusted to us as a heritage for our children and generations yet to come. "America for Americans" should have been sounded 25 years ago; had it been, there would today be no cry of approaching timber shortage.
What more absurd disposition of our timber land could have been made than the laws under which it has passed to private hands? The Homestead and Preemption acts, framed for prairies, requiring the settler to live on and cultivate the soil, have been extended to our forests, and to comply with their terms, thousands of men have withdrawn from vocations by which they were increasing the wealth of the Nation, and with blankets and provisions strapped on their backs and axe and compass in hand have worked their weary way through the pathless forests to vacant Government lands, on which they filed. Then with axe and fire they spent months destroying the property they proposed to acquire title to—destroying the resources of the Nation instead of increasing its wealth; and in doing so, fires reached beyond their control and destroyed still other timber. The law and the ruling of the Land Office have made this destruction one of the considerations of acquiring title. Settlers must prove they "have cleared and planted and maintained a residence on the land;" that is, they must prove they have cut and burned a certain amount of the Nation's timber, and have wasted or—worse—employed in destruction certain of the Nation's time, and this to acquire title to land upon which they could no more live than in the middle of a desert! Lands whose only value was in timber they were compelled, in part, to destroy; and this where they never intended to settle, other than to comply with the letter of the law, and never expected to return after acquiring title. The months or years wasted in complying with these foolish laws they might better by far have been spent in jail at the public expense. It would have cost the Nation far less, and would have been less dangerous to life than the lonely existence remote from other human beings, where any accident to limb costs a life.
Sometimes there was an actual settler who wanted a farm or a pasture. He considered the timber only in the light of its cost to remove, and with axe, saw, and fire, he proceeded to its destruction. And why not? That which cost nothing looked to be of no value! Timber appeared as free as air and sunshine.
Later the lumberman came, and up to 1885 our Government offered him in Washington hundreds of thousands of acres of the best-timbered land for $1.25 per acre. Michigan and Wisconsin had been so offered, and mostly sold. The lands of the Northern Pacific could then be had at $2.50 per acre and paid for in the bonds of the Company, then worth half their face. The lumbermen looked upon the timber as inexhaustible. Only that near water could be harvested by known methods; only the best of the trees could be sawed and sold at a profit; only western markets appeared possible. What wonder fires were set to burn the choppings and make pastures? No people save that which cost nothing, and for which they have no use and cannot sell. When things become of value they are conserved, and when of enough value they are manufactured or grown; and the ratio between cost and selling price regulates the supply of things manufactured or grown.
Up to within a few years there has been plenty of timber land that could be taken under the Homestead, Preemption, or Timber and Stone Acts, or scripted or bought of the railroads. The blame, then, for the waste of our timber has been with the laws that made it valueless. The men we have sent to Washington to make our laws have given this timber to all comers of all nations. They are the men our people should hold responsible for the waste of our resources. These same men now tell us, "We are on the verge of a timber famine," and that the lumbermen are wantonly wasting the Nation's timber. Is it not the old cry of "Stop thief!" sounded by the culprit? By their acts they have made this timber valueless. Had the Government estimated the cost of growing a timber crop and sold its timber at about that price, timber would have been protected, conserved, and replanted, and its use would be as in Europe, about 60 feet per capita per annum, instead of 600 feet as in America.
Since our timber has taken on a value, its destruction by fire has greatly decreased. Timber owners now use precautions, and employ fire patrols. So, too, with harvesting; it is cut cleaner, sawed with thinner saws, manufactured with better appliances, and great saving has been effected in every branch of the industry—all because of greater values. Now, if just tax laws were passed, taxing no crop until harvested, and taxing reforested land as stump land; if rates of interest were lower, and if stringent fire laws and careful patrol were enforced; if stumpage was a little higher or labor a little lower, or the railroads were to make a reduced rate on low-grade products, the law of supply and demand (or the ratio of cost to selling price) would reforest old choppings. Toward these things we are rapidly advancing, and before our timber is exhausted we shall have reached this point.
If our Government would hold her reserved timber at cost of reproduction, and protect the timber of the Nation by import duty, the question of timber shortage in America would soon be settled. Instead, they threaten reduction of its present value and increase of its waste by the removal of duty on imports. There is no way to conserve any commodity but to give it value, and no way to make people manufacture goods or grow crops except to offer a price that covers cost and a profit.
If the public would buy lumber of strength and durability suited to the purposes required, instead of ordering grades better than needed, they would help the Conservation of our timber far more than by essays and speeches. The most unreasonable of all buyers are our Government officials; with them there seems to be no purpose for which ordinary lumber is suited. So, too, if our State legislators would pass just tax laws, they would make a grand move toward timber Conservation. Instead, counties are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars—which the timber owners must pay—estimating the number of feet of standing timber, so as to be sure they find it all and tax it out of existence. This generation owes posterity laws that will save some of our present timber and leave to them growing timber crops instead of charred and desolate stump lands telling only of their fathers' greed and lack of foresight.
Wonderful tables have been prepared showing the upward tendency in prices of timber lands. Far better prepare a table showing the cost of growing a timber crop, and causes that have deprived it of its legitimate value. Water always rises to its level when the pressure is removed. Timber-value level is costly to produce. The greatest pressure to hold timber values down in the past have been our land laws; first the Federal laws for the sale of timber, second the State laws for taxes—and lack of all laws for protection and planting.