The prosperity of the United States appears to be threatened
by a very serious danger. The New York Times brings, statistics to prove that the demand for railway sleepers, fences, and fire- wood is so great that the forests are coming down at the rate of 8,000,000 acres a year, while the replanting does not exceed 10,000 acres. Chicago burns 10,000 acres of forest in one year. In ten years, 12,000,000 acres were destroyed by fire, merely to clear the land quickly. In Wisconsin, 50,000 acres are felled every year for Kansas and Nebraska alone, and a billion feet of timber was cut in a single year. With any other article, a rise in price would soon diminish demand, but in the case of wood, the cutters getting it for nothing, the price decreases with increasing means of communication. Nothing will save the forests under such cir- cumstances except the creation by law of great "forest reserves" in each State, to be cut only on scientific system; and the planting of any tracts available, also by the States. Lord Dufferin will do well to look steadily into this subject, before the vast resources of the Dominion in lumber have been reduced too low. The de- mand for the West is already falling severely upon Canada, and large as the forest acreage is, fifty years will effect enormous clearances.
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