The Patea County Press, With which is incorporated The Patea Mail. FRIDAY, DEC. 13, 1907. DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS.

Patea Mail, Volume XXIX, 13 December 1907, Page 2

The Patea County Press, With which is incorporated The Patea Mail.

FRIDAY, DEC. 13, 1907. DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS.

“ Be Just and Fear Not.”

A disaster which happened not long ago in the Pyrenees has an interest for most countries. The village of Ouzons was dominated by the mountain of Segus, once covered by a forest. The forest disappeared and was replaced by small shrubs on which sheep fed, A violent storm occurred, and the soil of the slope above the village, being no longer held in place by the powerful root systein of the forest, was detached and fell, on the village, which was buried under 400 ; 000 cubic yards of matter. The disaster is said to have been wholly due to the improvidence of the inhabitants of Ouzons. The American weekly which reports this case also prints extracts from a remarkable article by Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the Federal Forest Service, who, although reported to be a millionaire, devotes all his energy to the cause of forestation. He declares—and he is backed up by the President—that “ the United States has already crossed the verge of a timber famine so severe that its blighting effects will bo felt in every household in the land.” He estimates that, at the present rate of consumption, the supply of timber in the United States will be exhausted in (hirty-three years. The lumber business, now the fourth greatest industry in the country, will disappear. All forms of building ,industries will suffer. Mining will become vastly more expensive, and there will be a corresponding rise in coal and iron. The railways, unless a substitute for the wooden slaeper is found, will bo profoundly alfectea, and the cost of transportation will rise. Farming will ho more expensive. Water power for lighting, rnauufac' turing, and transportation will be affected. “ Irrigated agriculture will [ suffer most of all, for the destruction of the forcsta means the loss of the water as surely as night follows day. With the rise in the cost of producing food, the cost of food itself I will rise. Commerce in general will necessarily ho affected by the difiioulties of the primary industries upon which it depends. In a word, when the forests fail, tiro daily life of the average citizen will inevitably feel the pinch on every side, and the forests have already begun to fail as the direct result at (he suicidal policy of forest destruction, which the people ' f >ii,- flnited Wtates iujvp allowed •I * ms'd'K’n to pursue.” (inly 20 per cent of the country's timber land remains in the possession of the nation.