34 



Canadian Forestry Journal, January, 1919 



of wood, thousands of pieces of piling, poles and 

 ]5osts, and some miscellaneous products. We 

 have asked for several thousand more troops 

 which are expected over soon. We now have 

 seventy-five mills running day and night, and 

 before spring we expect to have 100 more and 

 to be make 100,000,000 feet a month. As for 

 the available timber, it is here. About two weeks 

 ago Maj. Kelly, now Lieut. -Col. Kelly, formerly 

 of the Booth-Kelly Lumber Co., Portland, Ore., 

 and I made an autopiobile trip to the Spanish 

 border. We went down the western coast of 

 France and returned through central France, 

 inspecting several operations on the way. We 

 went up the Pyrenees Mountains on mules to 

 look over a tract of timber and the chances for 

 logging. There were 100,000,000 feet in the 

 one tract, all around one ravine or pocket. About 

 two-thirds of this was in France and one-third in 

 Spain. It was practically all beech, but there 

 was a sprinkling of fir in it. Another tract 

 looked over a short time ago had 500,000,000 

 feet in it. We are just starting to saw a tract of 

 50,000,000 feet of white oak, so you can readily 

 realize there is a lot of timber in France. Be- 

 sides our operations, the British have several 

 operations and of course the French have, too. 



TO REHABILITATE FRENCH FORESTS. 



(Boston Transcript) 



There is a fine sentiment in that gift of 

 3,000,000 pine seedlings that Pennsylvania is to 

 send to France as a contribution toward the 

 restoration of the war-riddled forests. This 

 country is certainly indebted to the French 

 nation for many things in connection with the 

 war, not the least of which is the generosity 

 with which she opened her highly prized forests 

 that our armies might be supplied with the 

 requisite timber for engineering works. Into 

 those carefully tended woodlands our regiments 

 of trained lumbermen moved, armed with all the 

 up-to-date tools and machinery for the expedi- 

 tious felling and sawing of the trees. Notwith- 

 standing that this work was done under the 

 guidance of French and American foresters and 

 with as much regard for the future welfare of 

 the forests as the circumstances would allow, the 

 results must necessarily appear destructive to 

 people so highly educated in the are of forest 

 conservation. 



Now that our forest regiments are to be with- 

 drawn as rapidly as transport facilities will per- 

 mit it will be the handsome thing for the United 

 States to do what it can toward aiding in the 



repair of the damage that was permitted in its 

 interest. There will still remain a million or more 

 acres in northern France from which the axes 

 and the guns of the enemy stripped the once 

 thrifty forests and in the restoration of which 

 Germany and her henchmen should be made to 

 toil. What France really would be glad to have 

 from this country in this reclamation work is not 

 seedling trees, however good, but seed. This 

 country has just now closed its own doors 

 against foreign-grown nursery stock of all kinds 

 in fear of the pestilence that the plants may 

 carry. It would not be strange, therefore, if 

 France felt a similar reluctance to accept our 

 trees, not in retaliation for our prohibition but 

 because of a justifiable dread of the possible 

 consequences. 



Seed, however, is clean and will be much in 

 demand. Not unnaturally, though, the French 

 foresters have their preferences in the matter of 

 species and strangely enough from our point of 

 view white pine from eastern America is not by 

 any means a popular tree with them, not merely 

 because it is subject to the blister rust but be- 

 cause its lumber commands a lower price in the 

 market than even Scotch pine, regarded as in- 

 ferior here. The acceptancy of Pennsylvania's 

 gift is only another evidence of the traditional 

 courtesy of the French people, who unquestion- 

 ably appreciate the spirit in which it is made. 

 Seed of some of our choicest species such as 

 Douglas fir from the west coast and red oak from 

 the east would be most welcome in large quan- 

 tities, and the American Forestry Association at 

 Washington has afforded an opportunity for all 

 in this country who wish to bear a hand in the 

 effort to make good the unavoidable wreckage 

 by creating a fund for the collection and ship- 

 ment of the seed. 



G. A. GUTCHES TWICE PROMOTED. 



G. A. Gutches, District Inspector of Forest 

 Reserves (Dominion Forestry Branch) at Prince 

 Albert, Sask., has received a substantial promo- 

 tion by being appointed Superintendent of Gov- 

 ernment logging and sawmilling operations on 

 Menominee Indian Reserve at Neopit, Wisconsin. 

 Mr. Gutches will work under the immediate 

 supervision of Mr. J. P. Kinney who is in charge, 

 at Washington, of forestry work on Indian 

 Reservations throughout the United States. 



He was married on November 11th to Miss 

 Alleen Armel Erb, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. 



W. Erb, of Winnipeg. Mr. and Mrs. Gutches 



are now at home at Neopit, Wis. 



