342 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



North and South Carolina and Georgia (hiring the Revo- 

 lutionary War and paved the way for the final surrender 

 at Yorktown by their victory at Kings Mountain. It 

 was the woodsmen of Tennessee that saved the day for 

 Jackson at New Orleans in the war of 1812. It was the 

 lumber camps of Pennsylvania that formed the first rifle 

 regiment — the famous 'Bucktails.' It was the moun- 

 taineers of New Hampshire who prevented the escape of 

 Burgoyne at Saratoga, and it was in response to Ethan 

 Allen's emphatic demand that Ticonderoga surrendered 

 to the 'Green Mountain Boys.' 



"The transient character of our lumber industry when 

 not followed by agriculture has produced another source 

 of national weakness. As the timber has been cut in 

 such regions the population has moved away and the 

 congestion in and near the cities has been growing. 



■'The Pacific Coast and the Northwest, to which the 

 center of lumber production is now being transferred. 

 is the last field in this country where the timber supply 

 is plentiful and will afford opportunities, at the present 

 rate of cutting, for lumbering operations during the 

 next -iO or 50 years. The bulk of the private timber 

 holdings in this region is in the hands of a compara- 

 tively small number of companies. Since the carrying 

 charges, such as taxes, fire protection and interest on the 

 investment, are rapidly accumulating, while the lumber 

 prices remain practically stationary, the holding of the 

 properties, even for a period of 40 or 50 years during 

 which they can be cut out, becomes a hea\-ier burden 

 every year to many of the stumpage owners. Within the 

 last few years the country has been brought face to face 

 with a most significant economic fact — that the devel- 

 opment of the timber resources, so vital to the economic 

 and social life of the nation, proves to be a rather 

 unprofitable business when it is handled by private in- 

 dividuals. Instead of being a source of permanent reve- 

 nue and stability to the nation, it is full of uncertainty, 

 hazard, and financial loss. Such a situation from the 

 standpoint of national efficiency cannot be considered 

 other than a case of weakness which calls for careful con- 

 sideration and adjustment. 



REGULATING FLOW OF WATER 



" ASIDE from tnese material disadvantages from 

 /-\ which the country is suffering because of the 

 present system of utilizing our timber resources 

 there is another effect which is equally vital as the 

 material resources themselves, and that is the effect 

 which the indiscriminate cutting of the mountain forests 

 has upon our rivers and streams. In America in its 

 aboriginal state the largely continuous forest cover, 

 especially on the mountain slopes, acted as a stream 

 regulator. To make this regulation complete and attain 

 still more equal distribution of river flow, artificial stor- 

 age reservoirs were needed. The forest cover needed 

 to be supplemented. 



"What has happened, however, is that the forest cover, 

 instead of being supplemented was, over a large portion 



of the country, depleted and thus on many strategic 

 watersheds our natural storage reservoirs have been ren- 

 dered less eft'ective and the efficiency of other still vui- 

 touched watersheds menaced. In consequence, an over- 

 whelming portion of our national physical power runs 

 wild in floods and is thus used up in rendering further 

 desolation. The sources of much of our national energy 

 have been weakened — not by a thirty years' war — but by 

 a thirty years and more of state and national neglect. 



"The mountain forests of the West are still further 

 indispensable in the irrigation of our arid land. They 

 are an important factor in supplying water for the fif- 

 teen and one-half million acres of lands now irrigated 

 in the United States, with their animal crop production 

 of VJ^T million dollars, and they will be needed more and 

 more if the irrigated area is to increase in the future. 

 To forests, then, hardly less than to the water itself, is 

 due the fact that Colorado, once thought to be practically 

 worthless for agriculture, now grows crops that exceed 

 its mineral production : that the once arid wastes of 

 Arizona and New Mexico now vie in productivity with 

 the humid regions of Indiana : and that the famous 

 orange lands of Southern California are now one whit 

 more useful than the dreary expanses of the Mojave 

 Desert. 



"A country depleted of her forests with a soil exposed 

 to erosion or to the blowing by the wind, with alternate 

 floods and drought, with rivers rendered unnavigable, 

 with people losing the admirable traits which come from 

 constant contact with nature ; in a word, a nation which 

 cannot husband its own wonderful resources and save 

 them from destruction and devastation, is not an effi- 

 cient nation and does not possess the essential elements 

 of resistance which are needed during a great crisis. 



WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE 



THE majority of the American people have now 

 come to recognize these facts as fundamental, 

 and a change is gradually coming over our 

 land. There is a growing feeling that individual initia- 

 tive alone is pow-erless to bring about the permanency 

 and the proper development of our forest resources which 

 are basic to our national efficiency and strength. As 

 a result of this awakening, there have come now into 

 existence the National Forests, which have been created 

 from the forest lands on the public domain. These 

 lands are located chiefly in the western mountain regions. 

 The National Forests include also the south coast forests 

 of Alaska and several forests in the Lake States, in 

 Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Florida, and a small area in 

 Porto Rico. Not only have National Forests been estab- 

 lished out of the public domain, but under an Act of 

 Congress in 1911 eight million dollars have been made 

 available for acquiring liy purchase forest lands at the 

 headwaters of navigable rivers. Under this law there 

 have already been acquired or contracted for nearly 

 one and one-third million acres in the White Moun- 

 tains of New Hampsliire and in the southern .\ppala- 



