HARDWOOD RECORD 



45 



Appalachian Reserve Question 



A recent bulletin of the American i-'orestry 

 Association meets in an emphatic manner the 

 three principal arguments advanced by op- 

 ponents of the Appalachian Forest Eeserve. 

 A recent speech of President Guild of this 

 association is almost completely embodied in 

 the bulletin, a digest of which follows: 



Whether the money spent to preserve the 

 forests on the watersheds of the Appalachians 

 comes as an appropriation from the national 

 treasury or from the revenues of the existing 

 forest reserves in the western states, the East 

 and South have a right to ask the same atten- 

 tion to their development at the hands of 

 the national government as has been already 

 given to the West, and with universal ap- 

 proval. 



The opponents of the creation of Appala- 

 chian National Forests at the hands of the 

 general government have given three specific 

 reasons for their attitude. They claim : 



1. Forest reserves do not promote regular 

 stream-flow. Their creation, therefore, would 

 be a useless expense. 



The only authority for this mistaken state- 

 ment is the opinion of an officer of the 

 United States army whose profession iden- 

 tifies him with military rather than with 

 civil engineering. The hostile opinion of the 

 military engineering officer is in direct op- 

 position to that of the entire force engaged 

 under the forester of the United States, and 

 to the experience of China, of France and of 

 Spain. 



James S. Whipple, forest commissioner of 

 New York, is credited with the following: 



"More than 300 years ago France, in an 

 evil day, permitted that which we are now 

 permitting, to wit: the cutting of all its 

 trees, which left its hillsides and mountain 

 tops uncovered. The agricultural lands were 

 much injured; the water supply much re- 

 duced. It had no forest, the hillsides were 

 eroded, the soil was washed away. Then a 

 splendid man, realizing the enormity of the 

 evil that had come to his country, started 

 out on a campaign of education over France, 

 urging the people to plant trees. Since then 

 the French peojile have expended more than 

 .$200,000,000 in trying to reforest their waste 

 land, and they have more work yet to do." 



The opponents of Appalachian Forest Re- 

 serves present as their second objection : 



2. The acquisition of forest reserves by 

 the national government is unconstitutional. 



The constitution in terms was ordained and 

 established to ' ' promote the general wel- 

 fare. " If the establishment of a perma- 

 nent source of timber supply, the preserva- 

 tion of the water and of water-power, the 

 di'ainage of cities, and the preservation of 

 the public health, all of which are provided 

 by the acquisition of forest reserves, do not 

 make for the promotion of the general wel- 

 fare, it is difficult to say what does. 



Nobody questions the constitutionality of 

 various other public enterprises, presumably 



for the public good, as inland waterway pro- 

 motion, western forest reserves, the purchase 

 of lands for fortifications, etc. Why doesn't 

 the Appalachian bill come under the same 

 ruling? 



The third argument against the reserve is: 



3. The separate states in which forest re- 

 serves :ire proposed should pay for them out 

 of their respective state treasuries. 



The answer to this statement is that, with 

 the exception of New York, and one or two 

 others, the states separately cannot afford it. 



One of the most needed of these reserves 

 is in the state of New Hampshire, about the 

 headwaters of many of the great rivers of 

 New England, already shrunken in volume, 

 already damaged as a result of the neglect 

 by a national government that has been lav- 

 ish in its expenditures to save woods and 

 water-power and water supply for the states 

 beyond the Mississippi. The little state of 

 New Hampshire cannot afford, with her small 

 population and rocky soil, to buy and manage 

 such a reserve. 



The nation, however, out of taxes, to which 

 New Hampshire contributes, has maintained 

 national forests of 25,605,700 acres for the 

 rich state of California alone, and last year 

 added 2,304,483 acres to the national forests 

 located in that state. 



California and her citizens receive the 

 direct benefit of these forests. New England 

 does not. It was not California alone that 

 paid the bills of the war with Mexico. The 

 support in California, led by one of her gov- 

 ernors, of Appalachian reserves shows that 

 Californians themselves appreciate that such 

 a course is not merely generous, but just. ■ 



Not one state of the old thirteen that 

 fought the Revolution is benefited directly by 

 these reserves — not one state that helped to 

 pay for the Louisiana purchase is directly 

 benefited by these reserves — not one state 

 that fought the war of 1812 is benefited 

 directly by these reserves — not one state taxed 

 to pay the bill for the cession of Florida by 

 Spain is benefited by these reserves. 



No existing national forest has been ac- 

 quired and paid for, none is even now exclu- 

 sively maintained, by the people of any state 

 or states directly benefited by it. 



It is true that the extensive forest reserves 

 in the West were taken out of the national 

 domain, but who paid for the national do- 

 main, and reserved these lands for the local 

 benefit of the new states? Was it not the 

 very states who then composed the Union, 

 the very states whom the new sectionalism 

 would now cut off from receiving a small 

 part of benefits such as they have been 

 given ? 



Whatever develops any part of our country 

 is for the benefit of every American. The 

 states that are asking for Appalachian Foi-- 

 est Eeserve are merely asking for them- 

 selves what they have already gladly helped 

 to give others. For the first time in our 



history the governors of South Carolina and 

 of Massachusetts have stood side by side be- 

 fore the committees of Congress in this ap- 

 peal for simple justice and common equity. 

 If the maintenance of national forests is a 

 wise policy, that policy should be indeed 

 national and no longer sectional in its scope. 



Semimonthly Memphis Lumbermen's Club. 



Tlie regular semimonthiy meeting of the Lum- 

 bermen's Club of Memphis was held at the Hotel 

 Gayoso on Saturday afternoon, March 5. 

 Luncheon was served and the attendance was 

 large. 



W. R. Barksdale, chairman, an-d other mem- 

 bers of the entertainment committee, received a 

 vote o£ thanlis for the splendid work they did 

 in arranging the details of the annual banquet 

 of the club. 



Geo. C. Ehemann, chairman of the Committee 

 on Statistics, stated that he has mailed blanks 

 to the members to be tilled in with information 

 which the committee desires. When these 

 answers have been received, the committee will 

 compile statistics showing the volume of busi- 

 ness handled by the members, also other inter- 

 esting features regarding the lumber industry of 

 Memphis. There have been no such statistics 

 compiled during the past three years and some- 

 thing new along this line is desired, as it Is 

 felt that the old statistics which have been used 

 for so long do not do Memphis justice. 



A. L. Foster, chairman of the River and Kail 

 Committee, called the attention of the club to 

 the decision handed down by the Interstate 

 Commerce Commission in regard to the minimum 

 weight of car lot shipments. He stated that, 

 in accordance with the decision, if a shipper 

 orders a car in writing from a railroad company 

 and specifies the minimum weight, it is Impos- 

 sible for the carrier to recover from the shipper 

 even if the amount loaded into the car is not 

 up to the minimum for that special car. In 

 other words. If a shipper orders a car of which 

 the minimum weight is 30,000 pounds, and the 

 railroad furnishes a car whose rating is 34,000 

 pounds, the shipper cannot be held for freight 

 on the additional 4,000 pounds. 



A letter was read by Secretary Thompson 

 from the Helena (Ark.) Board of Trade stating 

 that there was a desire to organize a club in 

 Helena somewhat similar to the Lumbermen's 

 Club of Memphis. 



There were five applications for membership, 

 four of which will receive serious consideration 

 at the hands of the membership committee. The 

 llflh was somewhat of the nature of a joke at 

 the expense of John W. McClure, first vice- 

 president of the club. After the secretary had 

 read the first four names, he was handed an 

 additional blank in which the name was stated 

 as J. W. McClure, Jr., residence address, Carr 

 avenue, business address, Randolph Building, 

 and firm associated with the Bellgrade Lumber 

 Company, Memphis. In response to the question 

 as to whether or not the applicant was inter- 

 ested financially in said firm, it was stated that 

 he was not but that he expected to be. As to 

 the capacity in which he was employed, it was 

 stated that he was a silent but noi.sy partner. 



There were several visitors present, including 

 George I. Hull of the Webster Lumber Company, 

 Swanton, Vt. ; H. J. Dudley of the Dudley Lum- 

 ber Company, Memphis and Grand Rapids, and 

 Joseph J. Hyde of Geissel & Richardson, Phila- 

 delphia. 



In the announcement of the meeting, Secrc- 

 t:iry Thompson included the recent resolutions 

 of N. Butler Haynes, looking to the formation 

 of a lumber exchange at which transactions in 

 lumber might be conducted during certain hours 

 of the day. This subject will come up for con- 

 sideration at an early date. 



