4 FORESTRY : WHAT IT MEANS TO THE NATION 



purposes. The destruction which has already taken 

 place in this manner in Belgium, North France, and 

 Poland must be immense. As is well known, Germany 

 has been making wholesale fellings in the Belgian 

 forests, and transporting the timber so cut into her 

 own country to save, doubtless, felling in her own 

 woods. 



The result of all this destruction must inevitably 

 react on the supplies available for use by the countries 

 in which it has taken place. In other words, we must 

 expect in the future to meet these countries as com- 

 petitors in markets to which up to now they have not 

 had to resort to any great extent. This is one point 

 which should receive early and serious attention. But 

 there is another which, although it has a direct relation 

 to the above, is really distinct, and requires to be con- 

 sidered apart. It falls within the category of passing 

 or temporary problems, but it is likely to prove for us 

 an exceedingly unpleasant one, and, so far as can be 

 foreseen, an expensive one to boot. 



How are the towns and villages, the farms and 

 tenements of all kinds of stricken and devastated 

 Belgium to be rebuilt ? How those of France and 

 Poland ? House-building at the close of the war will be 

 on a gigantic, a hitherto undreamt-of scale. Enormous 

 amounts of timber will be required, of the cheaper 

 kinds of timbers which are known to commerce as 

 soft woods ; these are practically all conifers pines 

 (red and yellow deal), spruces, and firs (white deal) and 

 the larches. 



It will be interesting and instructive to consider for 

 a moment where these materials chiefly come from. 



