EDITORIAL 



561 



A PERMANENT FOREST COMMUNITY 



WOOD TURNING contains an interesting ac- 

 count of a permanent forest community which 

 affords a pleasant contrast to the deserted villages 

 that in so many regions have followed in the wake of the 

 lumber industry. Already for three-quarters of a cen- 

 tury the factory which supports the little settlement at 

 Forestdale, Vermont, has been producing small handles, 

 toys, and other wood turnings. Moreover, there is every 

 prospect that it will continue to do so indefinitely, since its 

 owners have taken the very wise precaution of safe- 

 guarding its supply of raw material. Some 8,000 acres 

 of forest land have been acquired and are being so 

 handled as to insure a perpetual supply of timber from 

 them. Considerable forest planting has been done and 

 improvement cuttings are being made. Net profits of 

 about $128 from two thinnings of a five-acre lot of 

 white pine show that the benefits from such work are 

 not necessarily confined to the future. 



From a social and economic standpoint Forestdale 

 bears striking witness to the value of permanence in our 

 forest and wood-using industries. Not only does the 

 wood-turning plant continue to add year after year to 

 the world's wealth, but its employes are able to establish 

 themselves in permanent homes, most of which they own, 

 and to bring up their families in the midst of a com- 

 fortable and wholesome community life. Many of those 

 now at the plant are the children and grandchildren of 

 older employes, and there is a general friendliness and 

 recognition of mutual interest between the workers and 

 the management which is impossible in the unwholesome 

 atmosphere and surroundings characteristic of so many 

 purely temporary enterprises. From every point of 

 view there is a decided advantage in the permanence 

 which only the practice of forestry can impart to in- 

 dustries dependent on forest products for their supply 

 of raw material. 



WOMEN WORKING FOR FORESTRY 



'T'HAT women can work for forestry and can aid ma- 

 terially in getting trees planted and in securing for- 

 estry legislation is the fact which Julia Lester Dillon, 

 chairman of forestry for the Georgia Federation of Wom- 

 en's Clubs, states in a letter she has sent to the members 

 of the clubs. Mrs. Dillon says, and what she says applies 

 to women in every state: "The day is past when the 

 women of Georgia can be content with the planting of a 

 few trees, the location of a few others and the conserva- 

 tion of all, and call it forestry work. The day of greater 

 effort has come. The day of great opportunities for 

 service is with us. Hear the clarion call. Education is 

 the first step in any forward campaign. Therefore, the 

 first item for the development of the forestry department 

 is information. To secure this it is necessary for the 

 clubs and club members individually to identify them- 

 selves with the work of the American Forestry Associa- 

 tion by becoming members, which insures to them the 

 American Forestry magazine, which is one of the most 

 interesting and beautiful magazines published. Other 

 states are calling upon their Boy Scouts to replant de- 

 forested areas. Twenty-five boys of New York planted 

 14,000 trees in the John Burroughs Memorial Forest 

 this spring. In another state the Boys' Farm Clubs are 

 being interested by the farm demonstration agents in the 

 work of the forestry department. Each club is studying 

 timber resources, locating denuded tracts, planning to 

 replant waste areas, learning how to cut out the timber 

 that is ready, learning what not to cut, planning to re- 

 claim washed-out lands by planting trees with wide- 

 spreading net-like roots to fill up the guHeys and hold up 



the washed banks. Can you think of anything that will 

 mean more to the agricultural future of the state? Why 

 not Georgia? If the women's clubs can secure the co- 

 operation and interest of these agents and through them 

 of the boys themselves and next winter when farm work 

 is light set about having reforestation done, the greatest 

 factor for present usefulness and future welfare is se- 

 cured. If the boys of today plant over the denuded 

 tracts, help to reforest the watersheds, the men of tomor- 

 row will not need to be urged to pass laws for forest 

 protection. Our legislatures and Congress will perforce 

 listen to the demands of these citizens who ask because 

 they know. Our forestry department stands for the pro- 

 tection of all wooded areas in the State of Georgia. It 

 calls to the women voters to get in line and demand of 

 our legislators, state and federal, protection of our for- 

 ests. The most crying need right now is the passage of 

 the national forestry bill A map recently published by 

 the Southern Forestry Congress and sent out by the sec- 

 retary, J. S. Holmes, Chapel Hill, N. C, shows the whole 

 of our sovereign state of Georgia in the blackened area 

 exposed to fire menace and without forest protection. Is 

 there a citizen who has not seen fire-blackened wastes in 

 our pine forests caused by a carelessly thrown match or 

 cigarette stub or marking a deserted camp site or any one 

 of a hundred causes? Why wait until further damage 

 is done? Can we afford to have our remaining wooded 

 resources burned up, cut over, wasted, in the present 

 as they have been in the past? In the end, as in the be- 

 ginning, study is needed. We must learn about the forest 

 resources if we would preserve them. 



