FRENCH FOREST DESTRUCTION 



By Urbain Gohier 



AT all times war has destroyed men and animals, 

 houses and temples, farms, castles, and cottages. 



The present war destroys more, the forests. The 

 peril of deforestation and the problem of re- 

 forestation, which face us continually, with no 

 actual future results, must gain our attention at 

 once if we wish to live and to work in the future. 

 The agricultural situation which we are study- 

 ing, and shall continue to study, is only of value 

 when connected with the re-establishment of 

 French forests," 

 writes Urbain Gohier 

 in a recent number 

 of Le Journal, Paris. 

 "For, if there are no 

 more trees, there is no 

 fertile soil, no question 

 of cultivation, no agri- 

 culture. 



"Even before the 

 war it was the Ger- 

 mans who contributed 

 most to the destruction 

 of our forests. They 

 had invaded their own 

 forest kingdom and 

 wished to spare it in 

 the future. They had 

 need of wood for con- 

 structing their railways ; 

 they had attacked our 

 forests and method- 

 ically destroyed them. 

 The Himmelsbach firm 

 of Fribourg-en-Bris- 

 gau ; the Falks of Sarre- 

 bourg; the Schmollers 

 of Darmstadt, and 



other Germans established at Nancy or at Paris, acquired 

 wholesale all the wooded lands, not only in the East in 

 the Vosges, Ardennes, on the Meuse, the Meurthe-et- 

 Moselle, and Upper Marne rivers, but as far as the 

 basin of the Loire. They did not merely exploit these 

 forests they razed them completely, sold the trees, 

 parcelled out the land, or leased it for hunting. As 

 a rule, the trees paid the purchase price and the sale 

 of the land formed the profit. The owners of the 

 forests succumbed to the temptation of ready cash, at 

 first because the offers were high, later, because a forest 

 owner maintains a seigniorial appearance of extravagance 

 which makes him liable to public exigencies and to the 

 animosity of legislative demagogues. Such domains pay 

 80 per cent of their products for taxes. The forest owner 

 seized with alacrity the opportunity to realize on his 



30 



patrimony and to place the capital in more prudent 

 investments. In a period of ten years two hundred thou- 

 sand hectares of forest gave place to desert tracts which 

 remained unproductive for some time. 



"To this cause of destruction naturally were 

 added other permanent causes. To the rav- 

 ages of flocks of goats and sheep were added 

 the depredations of mountain dwellers, devasta- 

 tions which should have been punished by law, 

 which the administration tried to reach but 



which electoral influ- 



A SHELL-SWEPT FOREST OF FRANXE 

 The utter destruction of these forested slopes "somewhere" along the battle line in France 

 makes the problem of future forests in the war-ridden sections a serious one, and one which 

 is already attracting the attention of French foi esters. 



ences encouraged by 

 guarantees of impunity. 

 "Thus the deforest- 

 ation of the plains 

 completed that of the 

 declivities. The water 

 courses, formerly well- 

 regulated, were changed 

 into torrents; the cli- 

 matic conditions of the 

 country were com- 

 p 1 e t e 1 y overthrown ; 

 and inundations alter- 

 nated with drought in 

 all the French river 

 basins. The old oaks 

 disappeared because 

 they were needed in all 

 parts of the world for 

 railways; stands were 

 felled to furnish tannin 

 to different industries; 

 journals, newspapers 

 and paper of inferior 

 books devoured the 

 pines, beech, poplar, 

 and linden. 

 "And now the artillery is destroying the trees. Bodies 

 of the dead trunks of trees strew the soil with the debris 

 of men and horses. 



"Where the forest once stood are only seen scattered 

 broken stumps. The forest has disappeared. A poet in 

 the good old times arrested the arm of a woodcutter who 

 caused to flow from beneath the "rude bark the life blood 

 of a nymph"; but all the rhymers of the world can avail 

 nothing against the rattle of shells and explosives belched 

 forth by thousands of cannon. 



"While the forests and groves of the immense battle- 

 fields are effaced or scattered under the lightnings of 

 artillery, the forests of the interior and even the trees 

 bordering the roads all over France are falling under the 

 blows of the ax because railways must be improvised 

 at the front and planks, supports, timbers for crosspieces 





