222 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



April 



continue forever to furnish material 

 for the homes of men and to preserve 

 the water flow. 



Air. Wm. L. Hall, assistant forester 

 of the Department of Agriculture, who 

 had charge of the work of surveying 

 the proposed Appalachian and White 

 ^Mountain National Forests, spoke 

 very interestingly of conditions there. 



After eulogizing the address made 

 by Air. Wheeler, Mr. Hall emphasized, 

 from his study and observation, the 

 deplorable waste of timber now going 

 on in the Appalachian and White 

 Mountains, through destructive meth- 

 ods of lumbering. 



Air. Hall said that it is the prac- 

 tice of some lumbermen, where spruce 

 is taken out full length on the higher 

 slopes, to cut the hardwoods, which 

 are then left on the ground to decay, 

 making one of the worst examples of 

 wasteful lumbering to be seen in the 

 country to-day. 



Fires sweep through this decaying 

 timber, destroying the leaf humus and 

 leaving the soil bare, so that the for- 

 est cannot reproduce itself in hun- 

 dreds of years. 



Air. Hall said that the Forest Ser- 

 vice had pictures showing thousands 

 of acres, in the aggregate, on which 

 the soil has been absolutelv destroyed. 



One of the most valuable addresses, 

 from a scientific standpoint, and from 

 its wealth of useful statistics, was made 

 by Air. R. S. Kellogg, of the Forest 

 Service. Air. Kellogg gave the an- 

 nual drain upon the forests as lOO bil- 

 lion feet, board measure : and the an- 

 nual growth as not over 40 billion, 

 leaving 60 billion as the net annual re- 

 duction of our national stock of stand- 

 ing timber. 



The largest estimate possible of the 

 standing timber is 2,000 billion board 

 feet, so that there is a prospect of ex- 

 haustion in thirty-tliree and one-third 

 years, or one generation. In the 

 United States, said Air. Kellogg, we 

 use 450 feet of timber per annum for 

 every man, woman and child in the 

 country ; Europe uses 60 feet, a re- 

 markable contrast. 



Air. Kellogg spoke further of the 

 importance of conserving other natu- 

 ral resources. A very interesting dis- 

 cussion followed Air. Kellogg's paper. 



"The Drain upon the Forests" is 

 the title of a recent circular of the 

 Forest Service, written by Air. Kel- 

 logg, and published in November of 

 last year. 



F. E. Underbill, of Philadelphia, 

 delegate to the hearing on the census 

 of standing timber, gave his report 

 and said that from 1880 to 1906, 55 

 billion feet of lumber had been cut 

 from the forests of Pennsylvania, in- 

 dicating the vast amounts of timber 

 that are being taken regularly from 

 the State and from the Nation. 



A. D. Hopkins, forest entomologist 

 of the Department of Agriculture, 

 said that the Bureau of Entomology, 

 of which Dr. L. O. Howard is in 

 charge, has now arrived at facts and 

 methods whereby loss of timber from 

 insects can be controlled and pre- 

 vented. 



Chinese; floods 



Geors:e H. Alaxwell, chairman of 

 the National Irrigation x\ssociation, 

 gave a splendid exposition of the con- 

 trol of floods by forests and forest 

 planting, tie spoke of the floods on 

 the Ohio, Alississippi and Alissouri 

 rivers and their tributaries, the floods 

 growing more destructive each year, 

 and said that in a comparatively few 

 years we will have the same condi- 

 tions on the Alississippi that they 

 have in China today. In that country 

 there are no forests to control floods, 

 and the water runs out over the coun- 

 try, with the result that we have the 

 news every once in a while of those 

 awful famines in China, and an appeal 

 to the world for aid, caused by noth- 

 ing but forest destruction. 



Air. Alaxwell advocated a postal 

 savings bank, such as is in operation 

 in France and New Zealand, to bring 

 into the National treasury money for 

 planting forests, acquiring forest 

 lands, reclaiming swamp lands and 



