EFFECT OF THE WAR ON FORESTS OF FRANCE 



717 



States in the production of turpentine. The turpentine 

 industry of France is essentially a peasants' industry. Not 

 only are there many small properties, but the farmers and 

 their families earn a part of their livelihood by gather- 

 ing turpentine. Through this auxiliary resource peasants 

 have been able to develop farms that alone would not 

 sustain them. It is in this pine belt that a large num- 

 ber of allied mills operated during the war. Already the 

 people of the region are expressing grave concern over 

 the local economic injury resulting from these operations. 



Probably the first effect of the depletion of the 

 forest supplies will be a shifting of many wood-using 

 industries to certain large industrial centers. The 

 necessity for importing raw material will tend to cen- 

 tralization of plants at points convenient for transporta- 

 tion. There will be a tendency to substitute machine- 

 made articles for those made by hand. There will be fewer 

 and larger factories to 

 make wagons, furniture, 

 wooden shoes barrels, boxes 

 and the like. Large num- 

 bers of small factories will 

 probably go out of busi- 

 ness. Communities thrifty 

 because of the presence of 

 these industries will suffer 

 or have to find some sub- 

 stitute for the industry. 

 In some cases farms will 

 probably be abandoned as 

 has been the history in the 

 Landes when forests have 

 been destroyed. The home 

 industries dependent on 

 wood will in many places 

 disappear, perhaps per- 

 manently, as the skilled 

 carvers, turners and cabi- 

 net makers pass on. 



This dislocation of local 

 industry, the upsetting of 

 an established economic 

 equilibrium through the 

 exhaustion of a natural 

 resource will cause em- 

 barrassment, even suffer- 

 ing. It may be far-reach- 

 ing on the industrial and 

 social condition of rural France. 



Where will France now obtain the needed 

 supplies of timber? Before the war France 

 imported lumber from a number of coun- 

 tries. Nearly one-half of it came from 

 Russia, one-fourth from Sweden, one-eighth from the 

 United States, one-tenth from Germany, and relatively 

 small amounts from Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Nor- 

 way, Switzerland and other countries. 



France now needs for current industrial and domestic 

 purposes to import from two to three times the previous 

 amount of importations to cover both the amount of 

 her previous importations and what had been produced 

 from the local forests. In addition she will have to 

 import for several years a large amount of material for 



LIEUT. COL. GRAVES IN FRANCE 



The Chief Forester of the United States went abroad shortly after this 

 country entered the war to organize the work the American foresters 

 were to do in helping to get out the timber needed for war purposes. 



Future 

 Supplies 



reconstruction, an accurate estimate of which cannot be 

 made at the present time. Large amounts of lumber 

 will also have to be imported by Belgium, Great Britain, 

 Italy and several of the neutral countries whose forest 

 resources have been also drained during the war. Prac- 

 tically all countries whose forest resources are large 

 enough to enable them to make exports of lumber will 

 be called upon to furnish material to France and other 

 countries of western Europe. 



The first and most logical sources of supply are the 

 Scandinavian countries and Russia, with the United 

 States and Canada second. Fortunately, northern 

 Russia contains an enormous supply of timber which 

 will be available if developed in the right way. Political 

 conditions in Russia are such that it is impossible to 

 predict to what extent these resources will be available 

 in the near future. There is a large center of manu- 

 facture at Archangel, with 

 40 to 50 sawmills, some of 

 which are of large capacity 

 and of modern construc- 

 tion. The problems of 

 transportation of logs to 

 Archangel are peculiarly 

 favorable on account of 

 the streams and rivers 

 which can be driven or 

 rafted. It will be of very 

 great importance to France 

 and other countries of 

 western Europe to have a 

 large lumber industry de- 

 veloped in Russia. The sug- 

 gestion has already been 

 made that the Allied coun- 

 tries have a joint considera- 

 tion of their forest and lum- 

 ber problems. Such action 

 would be very desirable not 

 only to prevent high prices 

 that would result from 

 competition by them in a 

 single field, but to aid the 

 lumber exporting countries 

 plan for the production of 

 the needed materials. 



France has not only the 

 problem of securing wood 

 supplies for reconstruction and for her current indus- 

 trial and domestic use, but she must rebuild her for- 

 ests. This will involve in many cases extensive seeding 

 and planting, followed by careful protection and intelli- 

 gent tending. Oftentimes this will require annual outlays 

 of money with material returns long deferred. The 

 United States in joining France and her Allies in the 

 fighting, required and used large quantities of materials 

 from the French forests. The depletion of these re- 

 sources in which we have had to participate, under the 

 pressure of war, presents to every American who appre- 

 ciates the great sacrifices of France in the war a power- 

 ful appeal to facilitate the acquisition of materials for 

 reconstruction and also to contribute in some practical 

 way to the rehabilitation of the French forests. 



