410 



Canadian Forestry Magazine, Aiigust-Scptcnibcr, ig20. 



Can the prairie produce trees? Notice this beautiful effect at Brandon, Manitoba, shov.inj; a n 

 of evergreens and hardwoods. Is not this an improvement on a bare wind-swept plain. 



"Do Not Use Less Timber, Grow Morer 



From a Public Statement by Col. IVm. B. Greeley, Chief Forester of the United 



States. 



Many of us who served in France 

 ■were able to see at first hand the condi- 

 tions of life and industry in a country 

 where population has crowded close up- 

 •on natural resources, where for the 

 masses living has become close and hard, 

 :and, even to maintain standards of com- 

 fort far below what the average Ameri- 

 •can demands, a degree of thrift and 

 frugality beyond our comprehension 

 must be constantly employed. In France 

 ■wood is a commodity of a totally differ- 

 tent character from what it has been in 

 the United States. Even with the care 

 and intelligence applied unremittingly to 

 French forests, lumber is priced as an 

 imported luxury. No one can become 

 familiar with that country without ap- 

 preciating how this fact handicaps the 

 comfort of living and the industrial o])- 

 portunities of the French nation. The 

 gleaning of the forests for little fagots, 

 the very scaffolds used .in city building, 

 which are made out of small poles care- 

 fully lashed together and used over and 

 over again, tell the storv. With all their 



beauty and picturesqueness the rural dis- 

 tricts of France often leave an impres- 

 sion of decadence. A new structure of 

 any kind is a rare sight and moss-covered 

 stone buildings of the time of Jeanne 

 d'Arc must serve the French farmer of 

 to-day. Only a people great in industry 

 and foresight could, under such limita- 

 tions, have built up within an area less 

 than that of our single largest state, the 

 great industrial nation that France is to- 

 day. 



The lesson which such things bring 

 home is, in a broad way, the same funda- 

 mental truth which underlies many eco- 

 nomic problems of the present time — not 

 alone those of America, but of the whole 

 world as it strives to get back to normal 

 industrv. It is an old and simple axiom. 

 Aside from the will to work which is 

 the foremost quality of any strong na- 

 tion, its economic and social progress 

 depends in the long run upon the fore- 

 sight and efficiency with which its 

 natural resources are used. 



