Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 



of Cass Lake, a Minnesota commu- 

 nity that is a rival of nearby Bemidji, 

 whose civic-minded citizens have 

 erected an heroic monument to Paul 

 Bunyan, tells about Nanabushu, whom 

 he calls "an even greater figure in the 

 history of the Upper Midwest." 



"It was Nanabushu," Mr. Utley 

 writes, "who met Paul Bunyan about 

 9 miles east of Gass Lake, and gave 

 him the first licking that he ever had, 

 and sent him back where he belonged. 

 For 40 days and 40 nights these two 

 giants battled, but at last Paul, bat- 

 tered and bleeding, retired and left 

 Nanabushu to rule over the million 

 and a half acres, which later was to be 

 called the Chippewa National Forest. 

 Over this village hovers the spirit of 

 Nanabushu, who long ago realized that 

 if you take care of the forest, the forest 

 will take care of you." 



Can molasses be made economically 

 from wood? 



Research scientists of the Forest 

 Products Laboratory have perfected 

 wood molasses to the pilot plant stage 

 of development. Funds provided by 

 the Research and Marketing Act made 

 possible the production of a sufficient 

 quantity to permit several agricultural 

 experiment stations to make practical 

 tests of the wood molasses. Pilot plant 

 operations indicated that costs can be 

 kept low enough to make waste wood 

 molasses attractive to livestock grow- 

 ers as a source of high-energy stock 

 feed. In the first tests, wood molasses 

 has compared favorably with black- 

 strap molasses for several purposes. 



In making molasses, wood waste is 

 treated with acid to convert it into a 

 weak solution of sugar from which ex- 

 cess water is evaporated to produce a 

 50-percent solution of wood sugar. 

 Wood sugar molasses is being tested as 

 a preservative for grass silage at Wash- 

 ington, Oregon, and Wisconsin experi- 

 ment stations. Montana experimenters 

 are using wood molasses in preparing 

 mixed feeds and mixed-feed pellets to 

 use as a supplemental feed for sheep 

 and cattle wintering on the range. This 



station found it possible to substitute 

 molasses from lodgepole pine and larch 

 for one-sixth of the grain ration for 

 lambs. 



At the Southern Forest Experiment 

 Station a cooperating farmer found 

 that up to 30 percent of oak molasses 

 added to a mixture of cottonseed meal 

 and hulls was palatable to older cattle, 

 but that calves did not relish so much 

 molasses. 



Alternative ways of utilizing wood 

 sugar are to grow feed yeast or produce 

 ethyl alcohol. 



Why do foresters say on a forest and 

 not in a forest? 



To foresters, a forest is an area that 

 might include mountains, canyons, 

 streams, open places, buildings, and 

 other elements besides trees; they do 

 not, therefore, consider themselves 

 necessarily among trees or under trees 

 or in a grove of trees, in the way a 

 person thinks he has a picnic or hike, 

 say, in the woods. A similar usage is on 

 the table or on the football field or on 

 the page. 



How much pulpwood does a news- 

 paper use? 



Robson Black, the president of the 

 Canadian Forestry Association, is 

 authority for the statement that the 

 Sunday edition of the New York Times 

 has a weekly consumption of 800 cords 

 of pulpwood, the product of 80 acres, 

 and that a perpetual supply of news- 

 print for the Sunday Times requires a 

 timber stand of 416,000 acres that 

 is worked on a rotation of 80 years. 



W. W. BERGOFFEN is in charge of 

 radio and television activities in the 

 Division of Information and Education 

 of the Forest Service. He joined the 

 Forest Service in 1933 and worked as 

 forest ranger on the Chattahoochee 

 National Forest in Georgia and the De- 

 Soto and Bienville National Forests in 

 Mississippi prior to his assignment in 

 Washington. Mr. Bergoffen is a gradu- 

 ate of the New York State College of 

 Forestry at Syracuse University. 





