Excerpt from Arbor Day Manual: Arbor Day, May 11, 1909 Mr. Gifford Pinchot, chief of the Forest Service of the United States, informs us that the present annual consumption of lumber in our country is approximately 100 billion feet, while the annual growth is but a third of the consumption, or from 30 to 40 billion feet. This shows that our timber supplies at their present rate of consumption will last about 33 years. How, then, to preserve our forest areas, how to increase them, how to protect them from devastation, and how to ren der them in the future sufficient to supply the demands to be made upon them, all become questions of paramount interestand of deepest consideration by our state and national govern ments. The American people as the result of a century of forest consumption, and to some extent of wanton waste and destruction of their forests, are now slowly yet effectually learning that the best way to preserve their wealth in forests is to take from them each year for timber and for fuel a quan tity never greater than their annual growth and increase. In our last Arbor Day Manual we quoted information from many sources showing the necessity and national importance of tree - planting and forest culture, and herein we again print much of the information contained in that publication under the impression that truth relating to tree planting and' forest culture, many times repeated and often studied by our school children, will have a wholesome and beneficial effect upon them both now and in the future. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.