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These prospects seem to afford every justification of Government advances in reclamation and irrigation. Contemplating the inevitable and desirable increase of population, there is another phase of reclamation full worthy of consideration. There are 79,000,000 acres of swamp and cut-over lands which may be reclaimed and made as valuable as any farm lands we possess.
Our vast stretches of desolate and deserted cut-over lands are silent witnesses to the ruin which has been worked by the practice of destructive lumbering. Fortunately, a change for the better is now developing. With the last of our timberland riches in sight on the Pacific Coast, the lumbering industry is coming to see that it must prepare for the future.
If they had planted trees on the lands after the virgin timber was removed, we should now be one of the richest countries in the world in forest resources. Instead, they left barren stretches and desolate wastes where dense woods once stood. It is time that the present owners of the land begin the reclamation of our 326,000,000 acres of cut-over timberlands.
We now have more waste and cut-over lands in this country than the combined forest area of Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, France, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. The merchantable timber left in the United States is estimated at 2,215,000,000,000 board feet. The rest is second-growth trees of poor quality. One-half of this timber is in California, Washington and Oregon.
Sarah Shepard's father had died after having cleared one hundred and twenty acres of the cut-over timber land and it had been left to her. The dream that had for years lurked in the back of the little woman's mind and in which she saw bald-headed, good-natured Henry Shepard become a power in the railroad world had begun to fade.
Certain men are detailed to measure the trees and determine the value of the timber; they must mark the trees included in the sale, leaving out enough seed-trees for satisfactory reproduction. If it be a second sale over a cut-over area the problems are somewhat altered. Will the trees that are left suffer from wind-fall?
This protection should include cut-over and unimproved land as well as timber tracts. Such a plan would require that the State and Federal governments bear about one-half the expenses while the private forest owners should stand the balance.
To prevent overtaxing their production, it is essential that part of the load be passed to the southern pine cut-over lands. By proper protection and renewal of our forests, we can increase our production of lumber and still have a permanent supply.
And at the end of several hours of riding she was not suffering any particular pain, though she was weaker. At length the cut-over land ended in a forest of straggling pines, through which the road wound southward, and eventually down into a wide shallow canyon. Through the trees Carley saw a stream of water, open fields of green, log fences and cabins, and blue smoke.
Today, the last big drive against our timber assets is being waged in the forests of the Pacific Coast. Our virgin forests originally covered 822,000,000 acres. Today, only one-sixth of them are left. All the forest land now in the United States including culled, burned and cut-over tracts, totals 463,000,000 acres.
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