The Approaching Timber Famine

We have repeatedly spoken of the swiftly approachiug soarcity of timber, growing out of its inoreasing legitiinato use and reckless waste. Congress and our Stato legislatures ruight be induced to give the subject the attention which its magnitude deserves. However hackneyed the topic may have become, no one can dispute the fact that in the not very distan t future it will become the great eoonomical question of the day. For many purposes iron will no doubt take its place, but still it is very hard to imagine how people are to get along without it. Many of our bland optimists, however, believe that the good Lord will satisfy us with soine sort of equivalent when it is gone, as He did when petroleum was discovered. They point to the fact that we were literally on our last legs for light ; jut just at the opportune moment the vast storehouses of carbon oil were opened up, and a chance given to the whales to increase and multiply again. In the future, according to these predictions, whale oil will agaiu be cheap and plenty, if it is needed ; and so nature ever provides for the necessities of her creatures. This reasouing would prove more to our mind, were it not for the fact that in soine foreign countries- Palestina and Persia, for instance- the timber has not only disappeared, but civilization has srone with it. The DODulations have gonn back into barbarism, and the land has become a prey to desolating famine. ín ancient timos these regions were noted for their fertility; but with the disappearance of their forests the whole face of the country has been changed, as well as the character of the population, to a very great extent. Our attention is called to this subject just now from reading some remarles of Mr. James Little, of Montreal. He says that the people of the United States will, within the next ten years, use up all their pine, spruce, and hemlock tiuiber east of the Rocky Mountains. These supplies are chiefly found in Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin The supply in Maine is noary gone, and the people are now using spruce as small as six inches in diameter. Pennsylvauia uses up 500,000,000 feet of íer diuiinishing stores every year, and íer rematning stock will be gone in five years. Northern New York, which has urnished 300,000,000 feet annually, is ikely to be appropriated by the State for a public park, when the supply from that souroe will be at once cut off. The draft upon Michigan last year, owing chiefly to our great tire, rose to the enormous fig11ra rtí O Ctl íWlfHl Cllí Tu:. tí ure oí z,iu,uuu,uuu ieet. inig year ït reaches 2,000,000,000. Mr. Little avers that during tho uext twelve years, judging from the past, this country wül require 70,000,000,000 feet of lumber, and that we have not more than one-half that araount remaining in the woods. Canada ie aupplying us with large quaniües, but oli --- ., - ■-■■ ■- - j j jiou_4.,;,AI. ,vould not last us three years. Oartainly these figures are alarming, aud it would seem that if we are to be provided with a substituto for boards and timber, it ought to be making itself' visible pretty soon. Here is a great practical question, whieh should engage the attention of our savans at some of their meetings. It should be referred by Congress to regular standing committees, composed of the ablest men ; for, whatever resources the future may have in store for us, it has ome to be pretty well understood that nrovidence helps those who try to help