WILL BE TREELESS
IN FIFTY YEARS.
Condition Which Foresters
Say Confronts Southwest.
Lumber dealers of Kansas City and the states of Missouri, Knasas, Arkansas and Oklahoma generally, are centering all interest upon their twentieth annual convention, which is to begin in the city Tuesday morning. Between 1,500 and 2,000 of them have notified Secretary Harry A. Gorsuch of their intention to attend. Among these, at least 500 will be women, perhaps teh largest percentage of women that ever atended a purely commercial convention in this city.
All the indications point to the most important series of meetings in the history of the association during the three days the convention will last. Matters of such weighty imporance as the government efforts at forest preservation and the institution of the parcels post will occupy a great deal of the time, and the discussions upon these are to be led by some of the most important authorities upon the subjects to be secured in the whole United States. It is expected that these will attract not only the lumbermen of the Southwestern district, but of the entire West.
Overton Price, chief assistant forester of the department of the interior, will be the chief speaker upon the matter of forest preservation. His talk will be particularly interesting in view of the recent statistics compiled about the forests of Arkansas, one of the most important to the Southwestern district. It has been ascertained that there are about 100,000,000,000 feet of standing timber in that state, of which 20,000,000,000 is pine. In the year 1906 the total cut in that state was 2,000,000,000 feet, the largest in history. It is estimated that at this rate, in fifty years this will all be cut, assuming that growth will be offset by the deforestation and waste.
In Mr. Overton's address he will outline the plan whereby the government proposes to eliminate the extravagant wastes with which the forests in that state have been slaughtered. A large delegation from Arkansas will be present to learn the plans proposed and to secure hastiest cooperation with the government.
