its on my kids social studies test
2007-03-10 01:21:27 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
The logistics of transporting wood is one reason wood seemed scarce, but there are other reasons.
The main energy source in the 1860's was burning coal or wood. Since most families could not afford to buy large quantities of coal, they turned to the more accessable resource of wood.
Towns would deplete the surrounding area of its wood supply, thus creating a scarcity. Wood was used in conjuction with coal to power steam engines as well. Ships, trains, river boats, etc...
Eventually, a large town would need to import wood from outside its surrounding area.
2007-03-10 05:00:39 · answer #1 · answered by Moby 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Wood was NOT scarce. SAW MILLS were. The ability to produce it into lumber. However if we were talking about someplace like KANSAS...that is another story. They are in the prarie where trees as small and then only in creeks. There were not the large lakes built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Agriculture to supply moisture for trees and humans..
2007-03-10 09:30:19 · answer #2 · answered by american horse 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Transportation was limited in those times, so it wasn't that wood was scarce, it just seemed scarce. Today, transportation means that we can acquire wood easily because if there is no wood within 50 miles, that can be solved easily. Back then if wood was scarce in your area, there was no easy way to transport large amounts very quickly.
2007-03-10 09:24:38 · answer #3 · answered by firefingers100 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would guess that it was due to the lack of ability to process trees to wood. I would think that transportation of wood/ lumber products played a role too.
It sounds a bit like a trick question... the fact that trees were more plentiful than they are now, yet "wood" was hard to come by.
2007-03-10 09:32:48 · answer #4 · answered by and,or,nand,nor 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It seems like there would have been more wood back then. What part of the world are you refering to? This is an interesting question.
2007-03-10 09:30:31 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It might be location. Settlers in Oklahoma and Kansas had little or no wood due to there not being many forests on the great plains. They improvised and built Sod Houses.
2007-03-10 09:33:13 · answer #6 · answered by Willie 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They didn't have quite an extensive transportation system, and no chainsaws. So it was a logistics and equipment efficiency issue, certainly not a lack of woodlands.
2007-03-10 09:53:06 · answer #7 · answered by KirksWorld 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I just came from a porn site and I have wood right now.
2007-03-10 09:26:48 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋