Man and Nature; Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human ActionMarsh, George P. (George Perkins)
Science
Man and Nature; Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action
Marsh, George P. (George Perkins)
Conservation of natural resources; Human geography; Nature -- Effect of human beings on; Physical geography
The vast forests of the United States and Canada cannot long resist the
improvident habits of the backwoodsman and the increased demand for
lumber. According to the census of the former country for 1860, which
gives returns of the "sawed and planed lumber" alone, timber for
framing and for a vast variety of mechanical purposes being omitted
altogether, the value of the former material prepared for market in the
United States was, in 1850, $58,521,976; in 1860, $95,912,286. The
quantity of unsawed lumber is not likely to have increased in the same
proportion, because comparatively little is exported in that condition,
and because masonry is fast taking the place of carpentry in building,
and stone, brick, and iron are used instead of timber more largely than
they were ten years ago. Still a much greater quantity of unsawed lumber
must have been marketed in 1860 than in 1850. It must further be
admitted that the price of lumber rose considerably between those dates,
and consequently that the increase in quantity is not to be measured by
the increase in pecuniary value. Perhaps this rise of prices may even be
sufficient to make the entire difference between the value of "sawed and
planed lumber" produced in the ten years in question by the six New
England States (21 per cent.), and the six Middle States (15 per cent.);
but the amount produced by the Western and by the Southern States had
doubled, and that returned from the Pacific States and Territories had
trebled in value in the same interval, so that there was certainly, in
those States, a large increase in the actual quantity prepared for sale.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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