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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. XXIII 



SEPTEMBER 1917 



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NO. 285 I 



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THE FIRST FOREST REGIMENT GOES ACROSS 



C 



They've changed the Hun's ships names around ; 



Send us along, boys, send us along! 

 They didn't like Teutonic sound. 



Send us along! 

 We're overdue beyond the seas, 

 To hold us here is just a tease, 

 So send us over, if you please, 



Send us along, along! 



Chorus : 



As "Leviathan" the "Vaterland" 



Will gather no more moss ; 

 From "Hamburg" to the "Powhatan" 



Our gain is Prussia's loss. 

 But we don't give a rip 

 For the name of the ship, 



So long as we get across ! 



HESE were the sentiments expressed by mem- 

 bers of the Tenth Engineers (Forest) in the 

 early days of September, when each one of those 

 days that passed in the camp at American Uni- 

 versity grounds seemed very late, rather than early. 

 They lengthened out instead of growing shorter as all 

 September days should do, and all because the regi- 

 ment had not yet departed from a seaport on the At- 

 lantic coast for somewhere in France. 



In the latter days of August the regiment had 

 passed in review before the Secretary of War and As- 

 sistant Secretary Vrooman of the Department of 

 Agriculture. While the Tenth Regiment is a regu- 

 larly organized military unit, and a part of the war 

 forces, it remains true that in great measure the work 

 of getting the regiment together had been done by the 

 Forest Service, one of the bureaus of the Agricultural 

 Department, so Mars and Ceres, figuratively speaking, 

 together watched the regiment swing past. 



And it did swing past, with the stride of a veteran 

 organization; yet it had been given only a few weeks 

 of drill. The men had real quality to begin with. 

 Bystanders remarked how tall and broad they were, 

 how bronzed and fit they looked. Why should 

 they not appear to be what they were men used to 

 working outdoors, at jobs that required strength and 

 alertness. Among the lot, also, was a very considera- 

 ble sprinkling of college men, including not a few 

 recent graduates and undergraduates from the for- 

 estry colleges, from California on the West to Yale 

 in the East. "Eddie" Frey of Cornell was one of 

 the intercollegiate champions in the two-mile run 

 when he helped his Alma Mater clean up all four 

 places in the event against the picked men of all the 

 leading universities of the country. Another Cor- 



We itch to get there on the ground ; 



So send us along boys, send us along! 

 Right in the scrap we would be found ; 



Send us along! 

 We do not look for any ease, 

 We'll work at first among the trees. 

 Then we'll fight in the final squeeze. 



So send us along, along! 



Chorus : 



"Susquehanna" exchanged for "Rhein" 



In river names is fair ; 

 Our "Pocahontas" with "Irene" 



As a Princess doth compare ; 

 And the "Antigone" 

 Is as "Neckar" to me, 



If she'll put us "over there!" New Song. 



nellian, and one of the smaller men, was George Kep- 

 hart, coxwain of the Varsity eight-oar champions who 

 had swept the Hudson at Poughkeepsie ; and after 

 that he was a member of Cornell's intercollegiate 

 championship wrestling team. These men were typi- 

 cal of those who marched along with others who had 

 achieved championships in "burling," cordwood-cut- 

 ting, and the like. 



After the final review, in which their fitness was 

 everywhere apparent, they began to get impatient. 

 They had men enough, and more than enough, for the 

 unit which was to go across. Their equipment was 

 complete, their personnel ready, chaplain and all. 



The equipment included, besides sawmills and log- 

 ging machinery and implements, a Red Cross ambu- 

 lance and kitchen trailer, marked with the pine-tree 

 badge of the Forest Service. These additional parts 

 of the equipment were given by the members of the 

 Forest Service, the funds being gathered in small con- 

 tributions from office and field forces in Washington 

 and on the National Forests, and in the various Dis- 

 trict headquarters in the West. Women clerks in the 

 office and fire guards in the woods each gave her or 

 his bit to these useful gifts, which were gladly ac- 

 cepted by the War Department and that department 

 provided transportation for them along with the rest 

 of the goods. Funds for an additional ambulance and 

 trailer have been raised by District Six, which in- 

 cludes the administration of the National Forests in 

 the States of Washington and Oregon. These will 

 accompany additional forest engineer units now being 

 recruited to follow the first one. 



The welfare of the men is being looked after in 

 other ways, and while no Y. M. C. A. unit accompa- 

 nied it abroad, the work of such an organization is 



517 



