y destroyed the forests that they have not
only to make their homes of mud bricks or stone, but have little wood
left for fuel and other purposes.

We cannot mention all the purposes to which wood is put in our homes and
in our industries. It would take a whole page in this book merely to
make a list of them. What we ought to remember, however, is that it is
not so much the amount of wood that we actually _use_ as it is the wood
that is _wasted_ that is likely to bring us to want. Two thirds of the
wood of the trees cut throughout our country is wasted in its
manufacture into lumber and other objects. Besides this, as much wood is
burned every year in needless forest fires as is cut by the lumberman.
The waste of trees that are cut merely for their bark which is used in
tanning leather is a wrong for which Nature will sometime call us to
account.

In Switzerland, where the forests are given the care that we bestow upon
a garden, not a particle of wood is allowed to go to waste. The branches
are all picked up and saved. Even the sawdust is made use of in the
manufacture of wood alcohol, which has an important use as fuel.

There are many kinds of trees the sap of which has great value. If care
is used in tapping the trees, they are not greatly injured and will live
for years. Sap of the maple affords delicious maple sugar. The sticky
sap of the coniferous trees is obtained by making a cut in the bark.
Canada balsam, thus obtained, is a clear liquid from a fir tree of the
same name. It is the finest of all the turpentines and is used for many
purposes in the arts. Enormous quantities of turpentine are obtained
from the yellow pines. The pine forests of the Southern states supply
nearly all our turpentine. From this by a process of distillation is
obtained resin and spirits of turpentine.

The rubber tree found in the tropical forests has become one of the most
necessary of trees. Rubber made from the sap of this tree is now used
for many purposes for which we have been able to find no other material.

We sometimes forget how valuable trees are for various substances used
in medicine. Our lives may depend on having such medicines within
reach. Quinine made from the bark of the cinchona tree is perhaps the
most important. Camphor gum is furnished by another tropical tree. The
acacia supplies gum arabic. The poison, strychna, comes from a nut tree.
The eucalyptus, birch, and other trees too numerous to name, supply
vari