Community Forests 



397 



watershed forest of 5,200 acres. Its 

 planted timber is harvested under the 

 direction of resident foresters who 

 know from year to year just how much 

 timber can be taken from the stands. 

 The timber brings in from $10,000 to 

 $30,000 a year. The recreation areas 

 are heavily used. 



Where domestic water is not in- 

 volved, the dominant uses of municipal 

 forests usually are for recreation, tim- 

 ber production, education, and beauti- 

 fication. 



Such a forest is the 10,000-acre 

 Rocky River Forest in Cleveland, 

 whose highways, scenic beauty, archery 

 fields, bridle paths, walks and camp 

 grounds and picnic places thousands 

 of persons enjoy. 



LET THE CHILDREN GROW UP WITH 



THE TREES is a slogan that many 

 schools have adopted. The relation of 

 forests to our way of life is better un- 

 derstood by children who have an 

 opportunity to experience that rela- 

 tionship through the management of 

 the school forest. Wherever the pro- 

 gram of education in a school has been 

 related to experiences in the forest, edu- 

 cation has been benefited. The music 

 teacher who gathered her class at the 

 foot of tall pines in the school forest 

 to let the children discover for them- 

 selves that there is music in the rustle 

 in the treetops was teaching a lesson 

 in music appreciation not soon for- 

 gotten. The children named it the 

 song of the pines; by trying to catch its 

 mood and meter as the teacher played 

 the song of the pines on her violin 

 they learned the elements of true 

 music. The teachers of mathematics 

 and manual arts who led their pupils in 

 surveying a location for a shelter house 

 on their school forest, designing the 

 building and drawing up specification 

 and bills of material for its construc- 

 tion, were teaching practical lessons 

 that had great appeal for the boys 

 in their classes. The girls in the domes- 

 tic science classes, who worked out a 

 practical menu that they could pre- 

 pare and serve in the field to the boys 



who were planting trees in the school 

 forest, were learning lessons in the art 

 of homemaking. Such projects give 

 point to another slogan observed on 

 the signboards of some school forests, 

 "Youth develops where youth builds." 



The work the children do in devel- 

 oping the school forest property and 

 the experiences they have in their ex- 

 cursions to the forest create enthu- 

 siasms that take academic drudgery 

 out of school work and make it attrac- 

 tive. If the school forests had no other 

 function than that of a laboratory for 

 work that gives vitality to the school 

 teaching, they would serve an impor- 

 tant purpose. Approximately 1,300 

 schools have their own forests. Many 

 more have the privilege of using mu- 

 nicipal, county, or private forests for 

 educational projects. 



The Al Sihah Boy Scout Forest at 

 Macon, Ga., is an example of the or- 

 ganization forest. In 1923 a Masonic 

 lodge started it for the Scouts on a 

 tract of 236 acres of cut-over wood- 

 land. Title to the property is vested in 

 the Boy Scout Council. At the end of 

 16 years the stands were ready for the 

 first improvement cutting. In the next 

 decade, the annual cut has averaged 

 well over 100,000 feet, which has been 

 sold at stumpage prices up to $20 per 

 1,000 feet. 



The profit from the sales has been 

 used to improve a similar forest of 500 

 acres for Negro Scouts. It is known as 

 Camp Benjamin Hawkins. 



After the First World War, the 

 planting of trees as memorials was 

 very popular. Since the Second World 

 War, the idea has increasingly found 

 expression in the dedication of com- 

 munity forests as living war memorials. 

 As a war memorial, the forest at the 

 same time fulfills the other functions 

 of a community forest. Its role as a 

 memorial adds to its prestige as a pub- 

 lic institution. It combines well the 

 qualities that are desirable in a me- 

 morial attractiveness, long life, use- 

 fulness, and appropriateness. The me- 

 morial forests already dedicated to 

 those who fought in the war range 



