Large holdings result in sheep or cattle
ranges, in huge ranches, in great areas held for speculative rise in
price, and not in homes. Unless the American homestead system of small
free-holders is to be so replaced by a foreign system of tenantry, there
are few things of more importance to the West than to see to it that the
public lands pass directly into the hands of the actual settler instead
of into the hands of the man who, if he can, will force the settler to
pay him the unearned profit of the land speculator, or will hold him in
economic and political dependence as a tenant. If we are to have homes
on the public lands, they must be conserved for the men who make homes.
The lowest estimate reached by the Forest Service of the timber now
standing in the United States is 1,400 billion feet, board measure; the
highest, 2,500 billion. The present annual consumption is approximately
100 billion feet, while the annual growth is but a third of the
consumption, or from 30 to 40 billion feet. If we accept the larger
estimate of the standing timber, 2,500 billion feet, and the larger
estimate of the annual growth, 40 billion feet, and apply the present
rate of consumption, the result shows a probable duration of our
supplies of timber of little more than a single generation.
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