Tin-: wooD-FuKL ca:mpaign 167 



a reasonable price- I would suggest that such a company offer two 

 prices for the same grade of wood — the normal i)rice for wood cut clean 

 and an advance price (perhaps 50 cents higher) for wood cut under 

 methods approved by the State forester or some other approved for- 

 estry authority. All wood would be pooled and sold to the consumer 

 at a uniform price, since he does not have the interest in the improve- 

 ment of the forest which the community has, and, theoretically, does 

 not care how the wood is cut. The increased price should be suffiicient 

 to cover the extra cost of cutting under the selection or other method 

 of silviculture. 



Much has been written during the past few years advocating munici- 

 pal forests for this country and citing the experience of European cities. 

 It is extremely difficult to overcome the well-known American prejudice 

 against public ownership and so-called socialism. Little progress has 

 been made thus far in this line. The wood-fuel campaign of the war 

 furnishes a further argument for such forests as reserves of wood fuel. 

 It should be easy to make the people of Worcester, Mass., and other 

 towns which have suft'ered for lack of coal, see the advisability of 

 having close at hand a large supply of fuel which can be obtained by 

 team and auto-truck without burdening the railroads. A coal shortage 

 may occur at any time, due to a stpke of the miners or the railroad 

 employees or to a serious epidemic like the flu or to other unforeseen 

 causes. 



In addition to the attempt to establish the contents of a cord of stove 

 wood, as mentioned above, several States have made progress in classi- 

 fying fuel wood. The following simple classification established by 

 the fuel administration for New Hampshire may serve as an example : 



Quality i. — All good-sized cleft hardwoods of beech, maple, yellow and white 

 birch, with smaller quantities of hickory, ash, and oak. Some very large cleft 

 limbs would not be objectionable in this grade. 



Quality 2. — Partly cleft and partly limb wood, all of hardwood species, mostly 

 of the better kinds of hardwood, but with some good-sized soft maple and chest- 

 nut. No softwood. 



Quality j. — Mostly limlnvood of all species, with some softwood. 



The permanent benefits which should result from the wood- fuel 

 campaign may be briefly summarized as follows : 



1. An increased burning of wood and a more general interest in the woodland 

 as a source of fuel. 



2. The establishment of standards for the measurement and classification of 

 wood. 



3. The creation of co-operative wood markets. 



4. Furnishing a new argument for municipal forests. 



