War Consuming Britain's Forests 



THE lumber needs of Great Britain, due to the un- " The emergency work of the committee has included 



precedented demands of the war, and with supplies not only the importation of Canadian lumbermen, but the 



from most other European countries cut off, are importation of Irishmen and even of Portuguese who are 



so great that many of England's and Scotland's fine old now employed in cutting pit props to supply the Welsh 



forests, many of her parks and the estates of private coal fields. 



owners are now being denuded of trees. The cutting " By an order in Council under the Defence of the 

 and the lumbering are being done by a Canadian Forestry Realm Act, the committee has been empowered to com- 

 Battalion, the 224th, and by Irish and Portuguese timber- mandeer all the timber resources of the country, but so far 

 men, while two more battalions, the 238th and the 246th. tlieir action has been limited to negotiation with the land- 

 are now being recruited in Canada for service both in owners, who. Mr. Acland says, ' have met them most 



England and in France. 



The 224th Forestry Battalion is doing most of its 

 work in the north of Scotland, cutting Scottish pine. 

 There is a company at work in the royal park at Windsor 

 Castle, cutting trees there, 

 and a third company at 

 New Forest in Hampshire. 



Eight sawmills have 

 been sent over from Can- 

 ada to England, six for the 

 224th Forestry Battalion 

 and two for the forestry 

 committee in England 

 which has supervision over 

 lumbering operations there 

 during the war. They are 

 mills typical of the Cana- 

 d i a n lumbering industry 

 and are generally known in 

 Canada as portable mills. 

 They are entirely new to 

 the liritish Isles and their 

 great efficiency is said to be 

 causing much interest. They 

 have each a capacity of 

 15.000 to 20,000 feet a day 

 and include the edger. slash 

 saw, saws for making rail- 

 way ties, etc., in addition to 

 their big 56-inch circular 

 saw. They have 40-horsei)ower locomotive boilers. 



The e.xtent of the cutting is described by a London 

 correspondent who says : 



" Not even in the days of the .Vrmada and the wooden 

 walls of England was there such a tree felling as is now 

 going on in Great Britain. In every wood the sound of 

 the axe and the saw can be heard and lumber camps as 



224TH CA.\.\DIAN FORESTRY B.\TTAL10\ 



The hardy woodsmen of this contingent of Great Britain's army were recruited 

 in the lumber camps of Canada, and the men are now at work in the forests of 

 England. Two similar battalions are now being organized. 



fairly.' This step was rendered necessary by the fact 

 that the Government had no large supply under its own 

 control. Britain was not alone in failing to anticipate 

 the consumption of timber which war would entail. In 



none of the belligerent 

 countries, not even in Ger- 

 many, had a proper esti- 

 mate been made of the de- 

 mand that would arise for 

 ash wood for wagons, for 

 fir for trench work, for 

 woods for hutments and 

 for the thousand other 

 needs of the army. 



" There remains, how- 

 ever, this difference, that 

 Germany and the other 

 countries had their supplies 

 at hand in the best possible 

 condition of storage — in 

 their forests — while the 

 British e\en now, when 

 tonnage has become so im- 

 portant a factor in the war, 

 are importing some si.x or 

 seven million cubic feet of 

 timber each week. If in 

 these circumstances the 

 Gemian submarine warfare 

 had been more successful, 

 there would have been necessary a wholesale destruction 

 of British forests which would ha\-e laid England bare 

 for a generation. 



■' Now much is being done to use Britain's own natural 

 resources, and much more will probably be done during 

 next winter, if the war lasts as long. Some definite plan 

 must at once be laid down for afforestation after the war, 



picturesque as any on the Missouri are to be found as and the three essential things the Government at that 

 far apart as the Scotch fir woods and the Windsor and time must be certain about are, where to plant, what to 



New forests, where the Canadian lumhermen are work- 

 ing. Behind the statement of Mr. Acland in the House of 

 Commons that the Home (irown Timber Committee had 

 been successful in securing sup])lies. there lies a story of 

 one of the best efforts that has been made by any Govern- 

 ment department to meet the present war emergency. 

 594 



plant and whether they have got the plants to carr_\- out 

 the scheme. Of these three the last comes first. 



" The plants must lie ready when the labor released 

 after the war is a\-ailable. and here a little war time dis- 

 covery on the part of the committee is worth mention. 

 They have disco\-ered that Scotch fir makes better railway 



