Of the actual practices which distinguish destructive lumbering, a few may be cited. Stumps are cut too high and tops too low. Good lumber is wasted on lumber roads and bridges, Fig. 113. Saplings are torn down in dragging out logs. Slash is left in condition to foster fires and left with no shade protection. Seedlings are smothered with slash. Seed trees are all cut out leaving no chance for reproduction. Only poorer sorts of trees are left standing, thus insuring deterioration. Paper pulp cutting goes even farther than lumbering, and ordinarily leaves nothing behind but a howling wilderness. [Illustration: Fig. 113. Red Spruce Used in Building Skidway, and Left in the Woods. Hamilton Co., New York.] The production of turpentine from the long-leaf pine, Fig. 114, at the annual rate of 40,000 barrels has meant the devastation of 70,000 acres of virgin forest. [Illustration: Fig. 114. Turpentine Boxing, Cup System. Georgia. _U. S. Forest Service._] In view of this wholesale destruction it becomes of interest to know how much still remains of the timber supply of the United States. The latest and most authoritative estimate of standing timber in continental United States, excluding Alaska, gives a total of 2,800,000,000 M feet B.M.,[4] of which 2,200,000,000 M feet are privately owned, about 539,000,000 M feet are in the National Forests (Fig. 119, p. 271,) and 90,000,000 M feet are on the unreserved public lands, National parks, State lands and Indian reservations. Earlier estimates were hardly more than guesses. For example the census of 1880 estimated the stumpage of the U. S. at 856,290,100 M feet, while the census of 1900 gives a total of 1,390,000,000 M feet. The discrepancy appears still greater when it is remembered that in the meantime 700,000,000 M feet were cut. Of this amount 500,000,000 M feet were of conifers or 80,000,000 M feet more than were included in the estimate of 1880. The simple fact is of course that the earlier estimates were gross underestimates, due to the fact that they were based on entirely inadequate data, and therefore can not be used to obscure the now unquestionable fact that the timber supply of this country is surely and rapidly melting away. The Forest Service estimates that the present annual cut of saw timber is about 50,000,000 M feet. At this rate the present stand would last about 55 years and the privately owned timber only 44 years. This estimate does not allow for growth and decay. While the population of the United States increased 52 per cent. from 1880 to 1900, during the same period the lumber-cut increased 94 per cent. In other words the yearly increase in use is 20 to 25 per cent. per capita, that is, fast as the population grows, the lumber consumption increases nearly twice as fast. This increase in the lumber-cut far overbalances the growth of trees.