402 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



cal or chemical. In the mechanical 

 process the wood, after being cut into 

 suitable sizes and barked, is held 

 against revolving grindstones in a 

 stream of water and thus reduced to 

 pulp. In the chemical process the 

 barked wood is reduced to chips and 

 cooked in large digesters with chemicals 

 which destroy the cementing material 

 of the fibers and leave practically pure 

 cellulose. This is then washed and 

 screened to render it suitable for paper 

 making. The chemicals ordinarily used 

 are either bi-sulphite of lime or caustic 

 soda. A little over half of the pulp 

 manufactured last year was made by 

 the sulphite process, and about one- 

 third by the mechanical process, the re- 

 mainder being produced by the soda 

 process. Much of the mechanical pulp, 

 or ground wood as it is commonly 

 called, is used in the making of news- 

 paper. It is never used alone in making 

 white paper, but always mixed with 

 some sulphite fiber to give the paper 

 strength. A cord of wood ordinarily 

 yields about one ton of mechanical pulp 

 or about one-half ton of chemical pulp. 



&' &' ^ 



France's Far-'sighted Forest Policy 



FRANCE has under way a far- 

 sighted forest policy which will re- 

 quire two centuries before the work 

 reaches its greatest efficiency. The plan 

 covers the reforestation of vast tracts 

 of denuded land and the work is in the 

 hands of four thousand trained forest- 

 ers in the pay of the Republic, and a 

 large number of men employed by the 

 communal governments. 



Consul General R. P. Skinner tells 

 how this work is being done by a great 

 nation keenly alive to the necessity of 

 doing it, and determined that it shall be 

 done well, though years and centuries 

 are consumed in the doing. Colbert, in 

 the reign of Louis XIV, exclaimed: 

 "France will perish for lack of wood," 

 and his prophecy was coming true a 

 ■century and a half later, when the 

 French people wakened to the peril 

 which threatened them, and called a 

 halt. 



Their forests were vanishing as are 

 those in the United States to-day, but 

 the depletion had gone even farther 

 than it has yet gone in America. France 

 commenced protecting and restoring its 

 wooded areas nearly a century ago, and 

 has stuck to the task ever since, but so 

 much yet remains to do that Mr. Skin- 

 ner says in his report : 



"The work is slow. It will require 

 probably two hundred years to bring it 

 up to its maximum effectiveness. But 

 the time is foreseen when existing dam- 

 aged forests will be reconstituted, and 

 when all the waste spaces will be re- 

 planted to the point of proper propor- 

 tion to insure the conservation of the 

 water supply, and to furnish the timber 

 and wood required by the population. 

 The effect upon private landowners of 

 this public work has been most salutary. 

 Where bald mountains have been re- 

 planted, very surprising local results 

 are now visible to all observers. This is 

 especially true in the Hautes Alpes. 

 which had the enviable reputation of 

 being the poorest department of 

 France, and is, in fact, one of the few 

 from which the United States has re- 

 ceived several thousand French immi- 

 grants. There are now many artificial- 

 ly planted forests in this department of 

 twenty-five years' standing, and in the 

 bottomland below, conditions have so 

 improved that a state of general pros- 

 perity prevails." 



The plan of the French foresters is 

 comprehensive. It embraces the care 

 of forest land, planting of trees, fixa- 

 tion of dunes near the coasts to prevent 

 the drifting of sand upon agricultural 

 land, utilization of water in pastoral 

 and forest regions, and the surveillance 

 of river fishing and fish culture. This 

 comprehensive service extends to every 

 part of the Republic. 



The area of the National Forests of 

 the United States exceeds twenty-fold 

 the national and communal forests of 

 France, but the problems are the same. 

 France has been longer at the work 

 and when it began its forests were in 

 a worse condition than ours are now, 

 but no worse than our privately owned 



