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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



served as a basis for a comprehensive series of recommendations 

 to the American Bureau of Shipping and the Fleet Corporation 

 on the specifications to be followed in the selection of timber. 

 Special tests of boxes were needed to supplement the strength 

 tests of wood as a material. Fortunately methods and special 

 testing equipment had been developed before the war. In some 

 specifications which involve the construction of hundreds of 

 thousands of boxes the number of woods permitted was increased 

 from I to 30. It became possible to use the woods at hand and 

 to make full use of the facilities of box making plants wherever 

 they might be. In addition, nailing, strapping, and construction 

 in general were standardized and adapted to the very severe 

 war requirements in overseas shipments. Redesigns saved 

 enormous quantities of cargo space. Large sums were saved in 

 initial costs. Losses since July i at ports of arrival in France 

 are reported officially to be only 15 per cent of those before 

 July I, and the reduction is due in part to the application of 

 Service investigations. 



Another general class of problems of first importance dealt with 

 timber supplies and production. A general survey was made 

 of the timber resources of the United States in order to make 

 sure that our supplies of woods should not be dangerously 

 reduced before provision could be made for substitutes. The 

 best data available were maintained on requirements as com- 

 pared with current production, and similar data were secured 

 concerning the forest resources of other countries. For special 

 woods and for special purposes, much more intensive studies 

 were required. It was not sufficient to be able to furnish data 

 on the properties, conditioning, and uses of wood in airplanes. 

 If it became necessary to select substitutes for spruce knowledge 

 as to supplies, quality, current production, and the extent to 

 which production could be increased was necessary on those 

 woods which from the standpoint of properties alone seemed 

 to meet requirements. The program on airplane woods included 

 field studies of the eastern spruce, practically equivalent to the 

 Sitka spruce of the Northwest, and also such other possible 

 substitutes as Port Orford cedar, Douglas fir, eastern white pine, 

 Norway pine, western white pine, yellow poplar, western hemlock, 

 silver, noble, white, and lowland fir, and even sugar pine, cypress, 

 redwood, and western yellow pine. The work on eastern spruce 

 was being followed up intensively by the Navy, but work on many 

 of the other species was far in advance of immediate require- 

 ments. 



Black walnut is the accepted gunstock wood. It had been 

 cut heavily for years, production was not meeting requirements. 

 It became necessary, therefore, in co-operation with the States 

 and other forestry agencies and the Boy Scouts to make a field 

 survey throughout practically its entire range. New sources of 

 supply were found, new producers were interested, and processes 

 of manufacture inspected and supervised to insure the most 

 efficient cutting of the material ; for it must be remembered that 

 the black walnut was almost equally needed for airplane pro- 

 pellers. Fortunately, the requirements for these two purposes 

 could be reconciled. Production was more than doubled ; and 

 the supply of black walnut was no longer a critical problem 

 when the armistice was signed. Two or three years more of 

 war might, however, have required the use of substitutes. 



Demand for tonnage in the transportation of food, munitions, 

 and armies left none for the import of tannin on which we have 

 hitherto depended. It became necessary to increase our domestic 

 production, and as a basis for this a field survey made by the 

 Forest Service indicated necessary lines of action for individual 

 plants throughout practically the entire region of tannin pro- 

 duction. 



The campaign of many agencies for increased production of 

 wood as a fuel to relieve the coal shortage is not new to readers 

 of American Forestry. The increase in production is known to 

 be large; and it has relieved discomfort and suffering an<i helped 

 to keep up the fighting spirit at home. 



Many other lines of work can only be mentioned in an article 

 of this length. Various economic questions relating to lumber, 

 pulp, and other important forest and wood-using industries were 

 studied in order to keep in touch with developments in the 

 industries, to anticipate ditViculties, and to provide Government 

 organizations with the information which they might need fo r 

 administrative action. Badly needed materials, such as a satis- 

 factory coating for airplane propellers and waterproof glues 

 primarily for plywood, were developed, as were also methods of 

 inspection and certification for glues in general. Material assist- 

 ance was given in the technical training of men, for which always 

 the demand far exceeded the supply. 



The lessons of the war will become more and more clear as 

 time goes on. But it is already obvious that the nation without 

 timber is handicapped in war as it is in peace. It is hardly 

 possible that another war will find Great Britain practically 

 without forests, and the lesson holds true everywhere. How 



greatly, for example, would it have been to the advantage of 

 England, and incidentally to us as well, to have had on her 

 own soil ample supplies of airplane spruce. England will now 

 have another powerful incentive to go into the business of for- 

 estry. Obvious would have been the advantages to the United 

 States to have had at home ample supplies of materials known 

 to be suitable for airplane propellers rather than to be dependent, 

 even in part, upon the tropics of Africa, Central America, 

 and Asia. 



Local as well as general timber supplies are necessary. In 

 the congestion of our railroads almost the first commodity to 

 suffer was wood. The farm woodlot has assumed a greater 

 importance than ever before. It supplied material for many 

 essential war needs. Black walnut brought as high as $135 per 

 thousand feet in the tree, locust for treenails $10 per cord in the 

 tree, and it is to be hoped that these and other wood prices 

 have helped to make owners of woodlots realize that in the pro- 

 duction of timber there is an opportunity for profit and ser- 

 vice as well. 



We ought to know much more definitely what our own forest 

 resources are. In years past there have been many estimates 

 varying in character and intensity and giving results not at all 

 comparable. The time has now come when much more com- 

 plete data under comparable plans should be secured for the 

 entire country. It is needed in all the forest and wood-using 

 industries as a proper basis for future plans governing their 

 operations. It is needed to stabilize the forest industries in gen- 

 eral. It should carry with it the collection of other data on 

 cut-over lands, growth under present conditions and the possi- 

 bilities of growth, social and labor questions, and in fact the 

 whole range of questions necessary for the formulation of a 

 forest policy for the Federal Government as well as for the 

 States and private interests. We need far more knowledge as 

 to foreign supplies, together with information as to properties 

 and utilization and the economic and trade conditions which 

 influence production and importation. 



The war has emphasized over and over again the need for 

 research in all lines of human endeavor. That the lesson is 

 being heeded is shown by such great national research move- 

 ments as those under way in England. With the need ahead for 

 growing all the timber that we use, as it must be now in much 

 of Europe, rather than depend upon virgin supplies, the technical 

 basis must be supplied through forest research. There will un- 

 doubtedly be a vastly increased program of industrial research 

 in the United States, and this program should include the 

 whole range of investigations covering the properties and utiliza- 

 tion of forest products. Industries, certainly for their profits 

 and possibly in some cases almost for their existence, will be 

 dependent upon the investigative efforts which they make for 

 themselves or those which are made for them by other agencies 

 and the results of which they apply. Investigations to determine 

 the properties of materials and the best methods for their manu- 

 facture and use are going to have a very decided bearing on 

 the extent to which these materials hold their place in after- 

 the-war competition. No industry can count on holding for its 

 products any field which it has formerly occupied. This holds 

 true of wood and the forest and wood-using industries as much 

 as any others. It is going to be a question of competition all 

 along the line, beginning with the use of land, then between 

 materials and industries in our own country, and finally, as a 

 part of the struggle friendly or otherwise, with other nations. 



AMERICAN LUMBER FOR NORWAY 



THE first shipment of American house-building materials, 

 ever sent to the wood-producing nation of Norway has 

 just recently gone forward, according to an announcement 

 from the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. It is 

 declared that the shipment is the beginning of a lumber trade 

 which promises to develop to important dimensions. 



A New York correspondent of the Bureau reports a recent trip 

 to Louisiana where he purchased about 120,000 feet of yellow 

 pine in the different dimensions suitable for wooden buildings, 

 and says that the shipment was made direct to Norway from 

 New Orleans. Another order half the size quickly followed. 



The correspondent also tells of having placed orders for high- 

 class carved interiors in quartered oak, mahogany and satinwood 

 for homes to be erected in Christiana, as samples of American 

 lumber building materials. Stocks of such materials are to be 

 carried at Christiana, Bergen and Trondhjem by a company 

 now in process of organization. 



