114 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Tree surgery is well enough, in its 

 place, but if all the dead trees and 

 branches were removed from a forest 

 where would the woodpeckers and 

 chickadees and wrens find holes for their 

 nests. And remember — many of the 

 little creatures reared in those holes 

 migrate later throughout the length of 

 our country and perform an inestimable 

 service for the farmer. 



But these birds and animals not only 

 protect their forest home, they help to 

 perpetuate it. The red sqviirrel and 

 the much persecuted grey squin-el are 

 excellent tree planters when they bury 

 a nut and forget where they put it. 

 The seed and berry eating birds scatter 

 undigested seed which takes root and 

 makes new cover — who has not noticed 

 the rows of Red Cedar along the old 

 fence lines, all planted by the birds. 



And so we might go on at length 

 showing how the woods people work and 

 live and do their part in producing 

 that marvelous organic mechanism, 

 nature's greatest work — a natural liv- 

 ing forest. 



Compare this, for instance, with such 

 a carefully groomed and combed scien- 

 tific product as a German forest. There 

 we have tree orchards, tree farms, 

 carefully selected and planted, the 

 floor clean and garnished, useful as a 

 lumber supply, but without character 

 and life — like a city without people — 

 splendid perhaps as an exhibition of 

 architecture, but lifeless. For as hordes 

 of people throng a city so the natural 

 forest is thronged with its workers 

 which are as important as the tree 

 itself, and as necessary to make it a 

 wilderness. 



Bison in Wichit.\ Game preserve. 



THESE BK; fellows find good feeding on this fine range on the WICHITA NATIONAL FOREST, OKLAHOMA. 



