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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



JULY, 1918 



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NO. 295 



VOL. XXIV 



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WITH THE AMERICAN LUMBERJACKS IN FRANCE 



BY W. B. GREELEY, LIEUT.-COL., ENGINEERS, N. A. 



IF LUMBER will win the war, the Kaiser may as well 

 call it "quits." The American lumberjacks are on the 

 job in France, barring the 95 men who went down on 

 the Tuscania. Their April drive netted 14,800,000 feet 

 of lumber, 153,000 standard railroad ties, 103,000 ties for 

 light railroads, and 316,000 pieces of piles, poles, and 

 small round products ; and we 

 have hardly gotten started. Al- 

 ready the shipping office, which 

 has the hardest car-supply job 

 a lumberman ever tackled, is 

 working nights to keep the 

 loading ground clear. 



As a business concern, we 



time of this Major, who heads the 4th Battalion, En- 

 gineers, is spent in signing requisitions or telling the Dis- 

 trict Commanders that something they want cannot be 

 had and must be done without. The regimental engineer 

 officers are members of his staff, working in and out of 

 Headquarters and a busier spot would be hard to find. 



A second Major from the 

 handles the specifications of the 

 products which are cut, works 

 over the requisitions which 

 pour in upon us from every 

 branch of the army, and places 

 the orders with the various 

 operations. This office also has 



have an organization 

 which might draw the 

 envy of a Minnesota 

 Line Yard Company. 

 The Colonel of the 

 Engineers is at the head 

 of it with the Colonel of 

 the as Assistant Gen- 

 eral Manager. Both of 

 these officers are should- 

 ering other large responsibilities aside from the work 

 of the Forestry Section. Then come the Department 

 heads, three Majors in charge of Operation and Equip- 

 ment, Products and Shipment, and Timber Acquisition 

 respectively. Upon the first falls the approval of opera- 

 tion plans, the allotment of saw mills and transport 

 equipment, action upon requisitions for all sorts of techni- 

 cal equipment and supplies, and field inspection of the 

 efficiency of the operations. About sixty per cent of the 



FRENCH BIG WHEELS ON AN AMERICAN LOGGING JOB 



DAY'S 



the difficult task of rust- 

 ling cars and keeping our 

 shipments moving to the 

 front and to the various 

 base ports and depots 

 of the American Army. 

 The Timber Acquisi- 

 tion Department is as 

 far flung as the borders 

 of France herself. In 

 every Operating Dis- 

 trict, one or more officers are looking up new logging 

 chances. We have timber scouts in the Pyrenees, in the 

 lower French Alps, and in the rough Central Plateau 

 of France where mountain timber and mountain logging 

 are the rule. Three officers represent the Forestry Sec- 

 tion in the Comite Interalliee du Bois de Guerre which 

 sits in high state and passes upon stumpage purchases or 

 requisitions for all of the allied armies, while a fourth 

 handles our interests with the French Direction d'Etapes 



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