American Forestry 



VOL. XVII JUNE, 1911 No. 6 



A NATIONAL CAPITAL FOREST 



By WILLIAM M. ELLICOTT 



y^^'HE object of tliis paper is to recommend the creation of a national forest 

 L) for demonstration and experiment and as a setting for the United States 

 ^*"^ capital. Such a forest would be a fitting background, worthy of the 

 dignity of the nation's seat of government and would give continuity and 

 variety to the impression gained from the magnificence of buildings, boulevards 

 and monuments of the city proper. 



Some of the western states are happy in having areas set aside as national 

 forests and national parks, and national forests are now to be established in 

 the East, in the northern and southern Appalachian Mountains. We look 

 also to Biltmore, in North Carolina, as a great achievement, and should 

 view it as an object lesson in practical application of the principles of forestry 

 to private lands. All these examples, however, are unfortunate in one 

 respect — their remoteness from the main traveled routes, rendering them 

 inaccessible to the vast majority of our people, for whom they exist but as 

 shadows, exerting the minimum of influence in their daily life. 



The necessities of the present time are such as to demand a full and 

 thorough demonstration of the possibilities of the management of forests and 

 their rehabilitation. 



The experience of European nations illustrates, first, the dangers arising 

 from denudation and, second, the commercial value of reforestation when it is 

 done under scientific management. 



The use of forests by the people becomes a habit which inures to the 

 benefit of the whole population, adding to its vigor and zest of life. 



Agricultural expansion in America has left certain areas unconquered 

 because of their unfitness for cultivation, and in these rests the hope of future 

 generations. One of these tracts, though sadly mutilated, has remained to 

 our day a vast forest useful for no other purpose. Providentially also, it 

 exists in a place which above all others should recommend it for protection 

 and improvement to the people of the United States. It forms the background 

 of the national capital, beginning at the bounding line of the District of 

 Columbia at Bladensburg and extending northeast nearly twenty miles until 

 it crosses the Patuxent River, a tract of 41,000 acres, while separated from it 

 by a narrow strip between Washington and Laurel, there is another body of 

 16,000 acres. Beyond the Patuxent it swings eastward touching the Severn 

 and South rivers and reaching the outskirts of Annapolis, the seat of the 

 United States Naval Academy, and thereby adds another area of 43,000 acres. 



I 



317 



