portant, representing more than a third of the total industrial in-
vestment. The number of wage earners engaged in lumbering
leads all other industries, excepting those engaged in agriculture.
In highly industrialized states like New York and Pennsyl-
vania, the manufacture of lumber is an important contribution to
state and community wealth, yielding annually nearly $45,000,000.
in value of lumber manufactured alone. Furthermore, these states
have other large industries dependent upon the forests. In the
manufacture of wood pulp and paper, $230,000,000 is invested
and the annual value of products reaches $194,000,000.
In Ohio, a state noted for its agricultural development and
manufacturing industries, lumber manufacture and its remanufac-
ture in planing mills represent a combined investment of $28,000,-
000, with products valued at nearly $45,000,000. The pulp and
paper industry adds $75,000,000 to the invested capital of the
state and $55,000,000 to the annual value of products.
In the South, the importance of the lumber industry is too well
known to need detailed mention here. By and large, the South
has furnished the greatest proportion of our national lumber re-
quirements during the past two decades, and the industry which
aas been built up ranks high both in value of products and in capi-
talization.
To THE COMMUNITY
The importance of forests in community development is
clearly shown by the industrial depression which frequently follows
cutting of local timber supplies. Prosperous towns and rural dis-
‘ricts built up during periods of lumbering have been entirely dis-
organized when their forests were cut. Abandonment of farms,
ind in fact the complete extinction of once thriving towns, has been
a common aftermath. Exhaustion of local forests in many counties
in Michigan has resulted in almost complete depopulation. Many
communities in New England and the Lake states where the gen-
eral prosperity depended upon the sawmill, where the farmers
produced crops for sale to loggers in the summer, and themselves
became loggers in the winter, and where the retail stores and rail-
roads served this industrial combination, are lost today. Nor, in
most cases, will they ever reappear until the original source of their
income, the forests, are restored and exploited upon a permanently
sustained basis.
17]
