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FOREST PROTECTION WEEK. 



The period May 22 to 28 is being celebrated on tlie mainland 

 as Forest Protection Week in accordance with the following 

 Proclamation issued by President Harding on April 7 : 



Forest Protection Week 

 May 22-28, 1921 



By the President of the United States of America 



A PEOCLAMATION 



WHEREAS, the destruction by forest fires in the United States in- 

 volves an annual loss of approximately $20,000,000 and the devastation 

 of approximately 12,500,000 acres of' timberland and other natural re- 

 sources, and 



WHEREAS, the present deplorably large area of non-productive land 

 is being greatly increased by 33,000 or more forest fires which occur 

 each year, and 



WHEREAS, the menace of a future timber shortage threatens to be- 

 come a present economic fact seriously affecting our social and industrial 

 welfare, and 



WHEREAS, a large percentage of the forest fires causing the annual 

 waste of natural resources may be prevented by increasing care and 

 vigilance on the part of citizens: 



THEREFORE, I, WARREN G. HARDING, President of the United 

 States, do urge upon the Governors of the various States to designate 

 and set apart the week of Ma}' 22-28, 1921, as Forest Protection Week, 

 and to request all citizens of their States to plan for that week such 

 educational and instructive exercises as shall bring before the people 

 the serious and unhappy effects of the present unnecessary waste by 

 forest fires, and the need of their individual and collective efforts in 

 conserving the natural resources of America. 



IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused 

 the seal of the United States of America to be affixed. 



DONE in the District of Columbia, the 7th day of April, in the year 

 of our Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-one and of the 

 Independence of the United States of America the One Hundred and 

 Forty-fifth. 



WARREN G. HARDING. 

 Bv the President: 

 'CHARLES E. HUGHES, 

 Secretary of State. 



President Harding's Proclamation bids the American people 

 to look to the protection and care of their remaining forest re- 

 sotirces. That there is need for such admonition is fully war- 

 ranted when one faces squarely the facts of timber depletion. 



Forest destruction has now reached a point in the United States 

 where three-fifths of the primeval forests are gone and 61 per 

 cent of the timber that is left is west of the Great Plains. 



The exhaustion of American timber has not come about be- 

 cause the forests have been used so freely, but because of the 

 failure to keep down forest fires and to use forest growing lands. 



