752 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



forests many problems relating to live stock, plant growth, 

 predatory animal and insect control, soil conditions, and 

 road and trail work. These great bureaus are directly and 

 intimately concerned with these problems. If the forests 

 were transferred to another department, that department 

 either would have to duplicate these bureaus in part, or 

 would have all the difficulties of cooperation with another 

 department which seem to be inherent. Whether the 

 National Park Service should be transferred to the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture is a matter for consideration. If 

 the transfer should be made, it would be unnecessary and. 



in my judgment, unwise to consolidate the work of the 

 two services. The park service should take its place in 

 the organization of the department as an independent 

 bureau, with its activities closely related to those of the 

 Forest Service. Certainly, if the two services are to be 

 administered by different departments there should be the 

 closest cooperation throughout. Such cooperation should 

 include not only the question of the creation of new parks 

 out of national forests, but also fire protection on con- 

 tiguous properties, game presen-ation. road building, and 

 other activities. 



Editorial 



FORESTS AND CLIMATE 



FORESTRY in one form or another appeals to every 

 human being. Although we no longer seek the 

 leafy fastnesses, climbing with all fours to escape 

 some prehistoric form of beasts, yet, even in the dawn 

 of history the forest supplied us with game and fuel. 

 The wooden house became the home in place of the 

 cave, and the heart of the home was the hearth. Uses 

 multiplied as standards were lifted. Furniture became 

 a necessity, not a luxury. The inroads upon the forest 

 became heavier. Finally, in many regions, through clear- 

 ing, burning and intense utilization, the power of the 

 forest was broken and it permanently disappeared. But 

 the traditional reverence for the tree still survives, and 

 we witness in this new land, in a single epoch, and side 

 by side, the greatest and most rapid and beneficial exploi- 

 tation and use of the forest ever before known, while 

 those who receive these benefits in innumerable forms of 

 which they are hardly conscious, protest instinctively 

 and with all their might against the further spoliation 

 of the woodland domain. 



To give solidity to sentiment, which otherwise could 

 make but little headway against necessity, the impression- 

 ist turns to the argument that forest destruction means 

 the loss of rainfall, and with it, the decline of agriculture 

 and the establishment of desert conditions in a once popu- 

 lous and flourishing community. These sentiments are 

 then mistaken for the utterances of scientists rather than 

 the theorizing of enthusiasts, and the result is a discredit- 

 ing of foresters and forestrj" as based on false generaliza- 

 tions. For it is accepted that forests neither increase nor 

 decrease rainfall as a whole. Deserts are not man-made 

 — else how did the camel develop his form and adapta- 

 tions. It took millions of years of desert conditions to 

 bring about the structural changes in this animal, just 

 as the neck of the giraffe became elongated for feeding 

 on the tops of dwarf trees grown under similar semi- 



desert conditions. Ellsworth Huntingdon has shown by 

 the study of growth on the big trees in California that 

 rainfall fluctuates by great cycles, centuries in extent, 

 while the shorter vacillations from wet to dry and back to 

 wet years, with a total swing of about twenty years, are 

 familiar to all old inhabitants, and shown unmistakably 

 by the records of our weather bureau. 



It is not necessary to employ this questionable reason- 

 ing to bolster up the cause of forest preservation, for 

 there are better arguments, and capable of proof, to justify 

 the maintenance of true forest lands under tree growth. 

 Xo reasoning can be found to justify a policy of denying 

 to agriculture the use of fertile soils, or to the public the 

 products of the forest, for fear of possible effects upon 

 rainfall if the timber is removed. But upon true forest 

 land, too steep to resist erosion, the forest cover has an 

 enormous influence upon the behavior of this rainfall on 

 reaching the earth. Science, which refuses to be con- 

 vinced up to this point, has repeatedly shown by actual 

 tests that streams flowing from wooded watersheds are 

 clear, even in flow and continuous, while from denuded 

 slopes similar in all respects, muddy torrents rush down 

 after every rain, to dwindle soon to a mere trickle. These 

 floods destroy the fertile bottoms, fill up reservoirs, and 

 ruin navigation, w^hile the irregular behavior of the streams 

 greatly diminishes the value of water powers. On the 

 headwaters of rivers rising in mountainous country, 

 forests have the same effect as the dams by which the 

 government seeks to regulate the flow of the upper Mis- 

 sissippi River, and in rough topograph}^ no dams will do 

 the work of the forest. It is upon this sure foundation, 

 and not upon fanciful, even if fascinating, speculations 

 as to rainfall, that the great construction work of the 

 National Government in the Appalachians and White 

 Mountains is proceeding. 



THE LESSON OF THE PINE BLISTER CANKER 



T 



HE white pine blister canker continues to spread, 

 and at the time this is written, the problem of its 

 control has assumed gigantic proportions. 

 So far, we have failed to check it. Whv? 



To answer that question is to lay bare some of the 

 weaknesses of our easy-going methods and pioneer ideas 

 of government. As a people, we learn chiefly by costly 

 experience, and our memories are short. We do not yet 



