THE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN 



FORESTS 



By RICHARD H, DOUAI BOERKER 



IN TWENTY-FIVE years the tim- 

 ber of the United States, on Gov- 

 ernment reserves and private 

 holdings, at the present rate of cutting, 

 will be exhausted. It is utterly be- 

 yond the possibility of the Forest Serv- 

 ice to meet the situation and prevent 

 trouble. One hope entertained is the 

 Appalachian Forest." This is the start- 

 ling statement recently made by our 

 Chief Forester, Mr. Gifford Pinchot, 

 and it strikes the key-note of the de- 

 plorable condition of affairs now exist- 

 ing in this country. It is a situation, 

 that, if not met soon, will cause un- 

 heard-of desolation and misery. France 

 some years ago experienced a timber 

 famine, and to-day she is spending $34 

 an acre to reforest her watersheds. The 

 same neglect is costing Italy $20 an 

 acre. Why can't we profit by the mis- 

 takes of other nations, and meet the 

 situation at once? Unfortunately, the 

 majority of people in our country can- 

 not reconcile themselves to the fact 

 that, if this destruction continues, they 

 will be the ones to suffer. Let us an- 

 alyze the situation more closely. 



We lay the destruction of our for- 

 ests to two general causes : first, to the 

 irrational policy now in vogue for the 

 conservation and use of our timber sup- 

 j)lies, and, second, to the wasteful 

 lumbering methods which are used 

 througliout the country, and the poor 

 protection given the forests against 

 fires, insects, and animals. 



Under the irrational policy now in 

 use we find two taxes that may be 

 called the greatest enemies of our for- 

 ests. The one is the tax on standing 

 timber, which compels the holder of 

 timber land to level his woodlands or 

 lose on his investment. This system of 

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taxation taxes the timber as though it 

 were a series of crops, whereas, it is 

 really but one crop. The other tax 

 which is helping to destroy our forests 

 is the export tariff on wood pulp. This 

 tax encourages the American dealer to 

 send his wood for pulp to the European 

 market and there sell it, often at a 

 greater profit than he could in America. 

 Thus we see that, in helping nations 

 who are in a worse predicament than 

 we, we are hastening our own ultimate 

 shortage. 



While these taxes doubtless cause 

 the greater part of the slaughter, still, 

 the failure to use economic and con- 

 servative methods in dealing with the 

 forests results in the waste of enormous 

 quantities of valuable timber. Let us 

 see what some of these wasteful meth- 

 ods are. When cutting timber, usually 

 every available tree is used, regardless 

 of its age, instead of cutting only the 

 older ones and leaving the young ones 

 to mature. In trimming the branches 

 from the logs, the brush is allowed to 

 remain wherever it happens to be 

 thrown, instead of being piled up and 

 burned, to make room for the young 

 seedlings to grow. A great deal of 

 waste results in cutting the tree too far 

 from the ground. The stumps, when- 

 ever it is convenient, should be as short 

 as possible Often large logs fall in 

 disadvantageous positions, and since it 

 is no loss to the party cutting the tim- 

 ber (he paying so much per thousand 

 feet drawn out) it is left to rot. By far 

 the greatest portion of the wooded area 

 of this country is without protection 

 from fires, insects and animals. In the 

 Government reserves, where such pro- 

 tection is given much attention, we 

 find that only one one-thousandth of 



