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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. XXIV 



DECEMBER, 1918 



NO. 300 



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EFFECT OF THE WAR ON FORESTS OF FRANCE 



BY COL. HENRY S. GRAVES, CHIEF FORESTER 



IRANCE has given her forests to the needs of the 

 war. It is one of her many great sacrifices. The 

 consequences of the depletion of her splendid for- 

 ests will be far-reaching and will be felt by the nation 

 for many years. The burden is already felt by the peo- 

 ple through local scarcity of forest materials and through 

 high prices. France will have to import most of the 

 timber needed for reconstruction. Many home industries 



War always makes serious inroads into the forests 

 of a country at war. This is especially true of the 

 country in which the fighting is carried on. This is 

 partly due to the destruction of forests in the fighting 

 area, and partly to the great demands for lumber and 

 other wood products of all kinds for temporary engi- 

 neering work. 



No war in the past has ever made such a call upon 



Photograph by Underwood and Underwood 



AFTER THE GOD OF WAR HAD PASSED 



The forests of France, like the ruined villages, must be rebuilt. Frorn those that were under severe fire almost no salvage is possible. What 

 was not split or smashed was filled with shrapnel splinters making it impossible to saw a board or crosstie. Even when the fighting was 

 less severe the destruction was great. This is a view in he Bois Etoile (Wood of the Star) on the Somme. 





dependent upon wood have ceased to exist. Thousands 

 of people supported by work in the forests and wood- 

 using factories have lost this source of employment. 

 The high cost of wood, which must be imported, is an 

 added burden on every undertaking requiring the use 

 of forest products in any form. And if the continuance 

 of the war had required the cutting of the forests within 

 the protective zone of the mountains, there wou'd have 

 been a repetition of the same damage through floods 

 which France has at great cost been struggling to 

 control. 



the forests for materials. There is no combatant country 

 in Europe that was not during the war heavily drained 

 of its available forest resources, and this applies as 

 well to a number of the neutral countries and the drain 

 will continue during the reconstruction period. The 

 greatest burden fell upon France. Extensive forest areas 

 in the fighting zone have been utterly ruined, but the 

 forests in the rear were also drawn upon to supply 

 nearly all of the wood materials used by the Allied 

 armies on the west front, as well as the local war 

 industries. 



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