150 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Wooden ships and aeroplanes call for special materials. The substi- 

 tution of wood cellulose for cotton in the manufacture of explosives 

 and the use of sawdust for cattle feed are among the new uses. 



Moreover, we have learned to appreciate that certain classes of forest 

 products are rare and of special value. Sitka spruce, once a despised 

 material, is now found almost indispensable for aeroplane construction, 

 furnishing long, clear, light, yet strong, material. The limited supply 

 of such material suggests the propriety of Government control. 



One of the first thoughts which the theme suggests leads us to the 

 battlefields in Flanders, where a wholesale destruction of forest cover 

 has desolated the country. While the territory occupied by the enemy 

 represents only a small fraction of the whole of France, it includes a 

 proportionally large part of the French forest area; perhaps one-fifth 

 to one-fourth of the total forest area — the most extensive and richest 

 portion of French forests — is located in the war zone and much of it 

 destroyed — a sad loss, which it will take many years to repair. It is 

 mostly privately owned, but private endeavor by the impoverished 

 owners will prove entirely inadequate to undertake the work of restora- 

 tion. There is little doubt that State aid will be needed. 



Not only outside the war zone in France, but in Great Britain, the 

 woodsman's ax has been busy cutting available supplies for war pur- 

 poses. That in this cutting Canadian and American lumberjacks have 

 been largely employed may be assumed to have made for efficiency in 

 operation, but it may also have been secured at the expense of all silvi- 

 cultural considerations. Many a forest managed under a natural re- 

 generation system will have been cut without regard to the needs of 

 reproduction, and French foresters will for many years to come find 

 difficulties in returning to a sustained-yield management, which has 

 been deranged by premature harvests. 



The magnificent fir forests of the Vosges and Jura Mountains, the 

 show pieces of French foresters, managed in selection forest, are being 

 dismantled without regard to reproduction and with the maximum of 

 damage to young growth. 



In Great Britain the utilization of home-grown timber on a large 

 scale will have waked up the people to the possibilities of increasing its 

 production, and we may confidently expect a more serious effort on the 

 part of the Government to inaugurate a forest policy which will encour- 

 age private endeavor to replace the cut plantations and for the Govern- 

 ment to attempt the ambitious pre-war schemes of wholesale afforesta- 

 tion of waste lands. 



