1118 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



CAMP OF 



A DKTArilMENT OF TllK 2atli ENGINEERS IN SOUTHWESTERN FRANCE, SHOWING OLD STYLE FRENCH FARMHOUSE 



IN THE BACKGROUND 



greatest imaginable pressure for (|uick production ; and 

 what is more, he does it well. 



The organization of the American forestry section was 

 patterned largely after that of the Canadian Forestry 

 Corps. When Colonel Graves and I landed in France 

 in June, 1917, we went first of all to the British Forestry 

 Directorate at LaTouquet. Gen. Lord Lovat received us 

 with the greatest friendliness, and gave us complete data 

 which he had prepared in advance, covering his entire 

 organization and equipment. Then, after a trip to the 

 Canadian operations under Colonel Johnson on the gov- 

 ernment forest of Lajoux, in Eastern France, and after 

 working over the information collected, we drew up a 

 cable outlining the organization of the forestry troops 

 ret|uired by the A. E. F. We based our requirements on 

 an army of two million men, and asked for 18,000 for- 

 estry troops, of which 7,500 were to be skilled lumber- 

 men, about 4,500 engineer troops for road and camp 

 construction, and about 6,000 unskilled labor. At the 

 same time we requested twelve officers to come over at 

 once for overhead organization. These officers we asked 

 for by name. They arrived in about two months, in 

 time to be of great service in acquiring standing timber 

 and other preparatory work. The unit of the Canadian 

 Forestry Corps is the company. We made ours the bat- 

 talion on account of our army regulations ; it was hard 

 at first to make our superiors see the need for elasticity. 

 Forestry troo])s were an entirely new venture. The num- 

 ber of men in the actual operations depended entirely 

 upon the needs of the case. Sometimes only 50 men 

 would work together, and then again, we would have 

 a thousand or more. 



The standing timber was all bought through an inter- 

 allied committee composed of French, British and Ameri- 

 cans ; later the Belgians were represented. We ourselves 

 selected each forest, in company with a French officer, 

 and then laid it before the committee. The negotiations 

 with the owner, and purchaser, were done by the French. 

 The French possessed the right of requisition, and used 

 it effectively, saving millions of dollars and defeating 

 the swarms of speculators which buzzed around us like 

 flies around the honey pot. By persistent efforts we 

 managed to acquire timber enough to keep ahead of the 

 operations. But toward the end it was becoming more 

 and more difficult to find reasonably accessible tracts. 

 Accessibility was of prime importance in selecting tim- 

 ber, because of the need for rapid production. If the 

 war had lasted, we would have been in a difficult position. 

 \Vhen it ended, we were planning to do railroad logging 

 in the mountains. 



Logging conditions varied greatly. The southwestern 

 pineries are as level as a table, except for the dunes along 

 the edge. Central France is level or rolling, the chief 

 obstacle being the heavy, sticky clay. Here the forests 

 were mostly oak, which we cut into ties and road plank. 

 The silver fir forests of Eastern France were in the 

 mountains. Our chief trouble there was the narrow 

 gauge railroads, which never had enough cars or engines. 

 The same kind of narrow gauge railroads bothered us in 

 other regions as well. 



Last autumn, before the armistice was signed, our War 

 Department ])lanncd to have four and a half million men 

 in France by July, 1919. This meant an enormous in- 

 crease in the lumber requirement. To meet it, we planned 



