EFFECT OF THE WAR ON FORESTS OF FRANCE 



715 



be chiefly manifested in higher prices for raw materials 

 and of finished products made out of wood. That the 

 prices will be high and a burden on the people of France 

 goes without a question, and it is vital to the country 

 that arrangements be made with exporting countries 

 to secure material at the lowest possible prices. But 

 the most serious consequences of the cutting of the 

 French forests is to be found in the effect on the local 

 industries, the loss of employment to peasants and others 

 who depend on 

 the forest and 

 wood -working 

 enterprises for 

 a part of their 

 livelihood, and 

 the economic 

 s e t-b a c k to 

 hundreds o f 

 communi- 

 ties which 

 have been 

 largely built 

 up through the 

 exist ence of 

 tributary for- 

 ests. The wide- 

 spread injury 

 to France can 

 only be appre- 

 ciated when it 

 is understood 

 how intimately 

 the French 

 forests are re- 

 lated to the 

 everyday life 

 and the well- 

 being of the 

 rural districts. 

 The forests 

 of France are 

 w i de 1 y dis- 

 tributed. There 

 are, as already 

 pointed out, 

 several large 

 forest centers, 

 but elsewhere 

 there are 

 wo o d 1 a n d 

 tracts which 

 produce each 

 year a steady 

 output for 

 some lumber and wood-using industries. The lumber 

 industry is not like that in this country, with large 

 operations that usually are more or less temporary in 

 character and last only until the resource is exhausted. 

 The lumber industry in France is composed of many 



Photograph by Underwood and Underwood 



THE SENTINEL OF DEATH 



Overlooking a valley in the Champagne region in France where artillery fire of the opposing armies 

 swept the area clean of tree life except for a few scattered trunks. Destruction of these forests means 

 loss of employment to hundreds of thousands of French peasants who depended for their livelihood on 

 forest and wood-working enterprises. 



enterprises, stable and permanent in character, and 

 adapted in size to utilize the material that regularly may 

 be taken from the forests. Compared to American stand- 

 ards individual sawmills and their contributing logging 

 operations are small. The industry, however, has become 

 an essential factor in the community. Labor is local and 

 permanent. Many persons work in the woods and in the 

 mills a part of the time and at other seasons on the farms 

 and in other undertakings. Thus, in many mountain 



sections, the 

 woods work is 

 pretty largely 

 carried on by 

 the peasants. 

 The trees are 

 cut at one time 

 of the year and 

 brought to the 

 roads, and later 

 on are hauled 

 out by the 

 peasants when 

 their oxen, 

 horses or 

 mules are not 

 used for farm 

 or other work. 

 So, also, manv 

 local people 

 work part time 

 in the sawmills 

 and the con 

 cerns that 

 make a great 

 variety of pro- 

 ducts from the 

 forests. 



The official 

 statistics be- 

 fore the war 

 indicated that 

 about 710,000 

 persons were 

 employed a s 

 wood workers, 

 but this did 

 not include 

 many thou- 

 sands of farm- 

 ers and peas- 

 a n t s who 

 worked part 

 time in the 

 woods and 

 mills, or participated in the home wood industries. So 

 intimately related to agriculture are the forest indus- 

 tries that the statistics of forest labor cannot wholly be 

 separated from agricultural labor. There are in the 

 Vosges, the Jura, and the Landes many mills manu- 



