600 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ship construction, besides nearly as much fir and hard- 

 wood. Each wooden ship requires about a million and 

 a half board feet, in addition to that used for the ways 

 and scaffolds. Aviation schools and camps, army trucks 

 and boxes, take millions of feet more. 



Just as items : One hundred and thirty thousand pieces 

 of piling for docks were in one order, while another gov- 

 ernment requisition called for 20,000,000 ammunition 

 boxes, all to be made of wood. If these piles averaged 

 30 feet long, they would extend 800 miles, or nearly from 

 New York to Chicago, if placed end to end. At Wash- 

 ington 10,000,000 feet of lumber has been ordered for new 

 frame structures to accommodate army bureaus. At one 

 government shipyard, somewhere on the Atlantic Coast, 

 50,000,000 feet of heavy lumber and timber is needed 

 for ways and general purposes. One Pacific Coast emer- 

 gency lumber bureau has received orders for nearly half 

 a billion feet of one kind of wood; while for air-craft 

 stock well over 100,000,000 feet of spruce alone will be re- 

 quired. In September contracts were awarded by France 

 for 24,000,000 feet of spruce ; Italy, 9,000,000 feet, and 

 England 36,000,000 feet. Lumber for portable or col- 

 lapsible military buildings of various kinds, for the 

 use of the American Army in France, has just been 

 requested. The first order is for about 15,000,000 

 feet, with ultimate needs aggregating several hundred 

 million feet. Creosoted wood block flooring is to be 

 used in government munition plants. An order for 38,000 

 yards, equivalent to two miles of street paving, is soon to 

 be placed. These are but examples of the demands 

 which our forests are meeting. 



A hundred years ago, before the days of steel ships, 

 treenails were a well-known product of the forest, but 

 with the decline of wooden ship building, their produc- 

 tion practically ceased. With the inauguration of the 

 present shipbuilding program, treenails were suddenly in 

 demand in greater quantities than ever before, with the 

 result that emergency measures had to be taken to in- 

 sure a supply. Locust is preferred to all other woods for 

 this purpose, but since the supply is not sufficient, several 

 other woods are now used in their manufacture. It per- 

 haps should be explained that these treenails are long 

 wooden pins, cut 20 to 26 inches long and 1>4 inches in 

 diameter. This is one example of the new demands 

 which have been faced and met in supplying wooden 

 products for war purposes. 



We have accepted our forest resources as a matter of 

 course, using them in many cases none too wisely. With 

 a standing timber supply which is still sufficient to take 

 care of all requirements for many years to come, lumber 

 has simply been cut where most available and as needed. 

 The lumber industry has strong resources, and is directed 

 by men able to meet any emergency such as at present ex- 

 ists. 



Every conceivable war requirement for wood can be 

 met, although, of course, in some cases not as promptly 

 as might be desired. In the western forests alone there 

 are almost 4,000 miles of logging railroad, 870 logging 

 locomotives, 13,000 cars and other necessary equipment. 

 With a normal annual lumber output valued at over half 



a billion dollars, mill and logging facilities were fortu- 

 nately available for the production of diversified forest 

 products for war purposes, which have a value beyond 

 any dollars and cents figures because indispensable in the 

 preparations for victory. 



It should be remembered, too, that while the military 

 needs are being taken care of, lumber for the every-day 

 needs of the country is being produced as well. This 

 alone, even with the decrease in building operations, will 

 not fall far below 40,000,000,000 feet per year. Although 

 their importance transcends all else, the war requirements 

 are a comparatively small percentage of the total output. 

 The emergency which the lumber industry has met has 

 not been in the volume of the wood required, but rather 

 in the urgency and special requirements. 



When peace is attained with victory and the mills 

 cut only for the normal requirements of peace and for re- 

 construction in Europe, it will be found that our forests 

 have fully met the unusual demands upon them, and re- 

 main one of our greatest natural resources. It would be 

 most gratifying if out of this crisis should grow a better 

 public realization of the part the forests play in the eco- 

 nomic stability of the nation. We shall always need wood 

 for construction, fuel and the arts of civilization ; the for- 

 ests alone can supply it. 



'T'HE New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse 

 ^ has recently sent out a circular letter to Chambers of 

 Commerce throughout the state warning against the rav- 

 ages of the tussock moth, which bid fair to be severe or; 

 shade trees during the next growing season. The egg 

 masses, which are white and conspicuous, may be seen 

 readily at the present time on the bark of elms particu- 

 larly, and these may be collected and destroyed or daubed 

 with creosote so that they will not hatch. The college, 

 in its letter, has suggested that local shade tree or park 

 commissions take the matter of destroying the egg 

 masses in hand at once and push it vigorously. 



'T'HE College of Agriculture, Cornell University, offers 

 * three courses in vegetable gardening during the 

 short-course term which extends through a period of 12 

 weeks from November 7 to February 15. Two of these 

 courses, one in commercial vegetable gardening, and the 

 other in vegetable forcing or greenhouse vegetable cul- 

 ture, are planned to be of special value to those who con- 

 template vegetable gardening as a life work. The course 

 in home vegetable gardening is designed to meet the re- 

 quirements of those desiring to secure a general knowl- 

 edge of the principles of vegetable production for home 

 use. 



T>LANS for a model after-the-war camp at Mount 

 ^ Gretna for Pennsylvania's National Guard have been 

 discussed lately between officials of the Adjutant-Gener- 

 al's Office and the Department of Forestry. These plans 

 take into account the increased productivity, capacity and 

 general beautification of the fifteen hundred acres of tim- 

 berland included in the State's two-thousand acre mili- 

 tary reservation. 



