62 FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION February 



Wood substitutes are deceptive. In part, their food, shelter, and means of 



Germany, a hundred years ago, coal transportation. We have him an- 



began to take the place of wood, but nouncing this as the greatest issue be- 



the consumption of wood in that coun- fore the American people, and con- 



try has increased in the same ratio vening an assembly of notables to dis- 



as the consumption of coal. From a cuss with him the problem, 



superficial view point, one might im- We have the United States For- 



agine that the iron ship would be a ester declaring that, under present 



wood saver. In fact, however, more policies of use and waste, our timber 



wood goes into shipbuilding to-day supply will probably not last more 



than ever before ; for all ships require than from one-fifth to one-third of a 



some wood, and more ships are now century — a period which, in the life 



built than in any former year. The of a Nation, is but the infinitesirnal 



metal used at the top of the mine fraction of the diameter of a hair; 



shaft is as nothing compared with the and indicating the calamitous results 



quantities of wood used below. Steel which inevitably follow in the train 



sky-scrapers are to-day the vogue ; of forest destruction, 



but more wood is used in the construe- We have the Director of the Re- 



-tion of houses than ever before. The clamation Service pointing to the vast 



old wooden paving block has gone, and beneficent work now in progress 



but another is taking its place, which, under Government auspices in the way 



it is claimed, is superior to any other of redeeming the desert and provid- 



form of paving. ing homes for the people; but aver- 



• And so on to the end of the chap- ring, at the same time, that the con- 



ter. Optimism may be a good thing ; tinuance and success of this work are 



but the optimism that "indulges in the absolutely dependent upon the reten- 



illusions of hope and listens to the tion of forests upon the mountain 



song of the siren," while hastening to- sides, which, in turn, is dependent 



ward peril, instead of bravely meet- upon National action, 



ing the situation and substituting se- We have a representative of the 



curity for danger, is a public menace. Waterways Commission and Bureau 



Of such "optimism" America has had of Soils asserting that we are permit- 



an overdose. The time for intelligent, ting the sweeping each year into the 



deliberate and vigorous action is at sea of enough soil to fertilize our 



hand. whole Atlantic coast area as far west 



as Ohio and as far south as Georgia, 

 The _ Before the American the annual value of this loss being at 

 Pressing Forestry Association lies least one billion dollars, and constitut- 

 ^^ a work than which, ing the heaviest tax upon the Amer- 

 perhaps, none more stupendous ever ican farmer. Such loss, furthermore, 

 faced a voluntary organization. It is is practically permanent, for the pro- 

 nothing less than the arousing of cess of soil formation requires not 

 eighty million people to a problem years or decades, but centuries and 

 whose solution is vital to their well- even ages. And he adds that this 

 being, showing them the '-emedy and "soil wash and river ravage are large- 

 leading them to apply it. ly to be traced to the absence of for- 

 Look at such facts as, in con- ests upon slopes in which rivers rise." 

 densed form, are brought together in In the case of our inland waters 

 the letter to our members, published in we have another billion dollars an- 

 this issue. We have the President mially going to waste in the form of 

 of the United States warning the peo- unutilized power, and an i\nnual darn- 

 pie of the progressive and rapid de- age, in addition, of one hundred mil- 

 struction of the very sources of their Hon dollars from floods. And here 

 physical lives— the raw materials again forest conservation is essential 

 from which must be provided, in large to the solution of the problem. 



