714 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



gabions or rough baskets of woven pine branches and 

 filled with earth, this being one of the first uses the 

 writer has ever seen for pine twigs. 



A walk through some of the captured German trenches 

 seemed to show that they preferred concrete for the 

 purpose of shoring up, as it is hard to believe that they 

 expected the rather thin layer of concrete and a lean mix- 

 ture at that to 

 withstand ar- 

 tillery fire. 



If they did 

 the Kaiser 

 must have pro- 

 fusely "straf- 

 ed" the engi- 

 neer who plan- 

 ned the work, 

 for the French 

 fi r e knocked 

 it into frag- 

 ments or over- 

 threw consid- 

 erable sections 

 in good sized 

 sheets. One 

 might hazard 

 the guess that 

 the French 

 basket work 

 would be a 

 safer bulwark 

 and more en- 

 during than the German 

 concrete. 



Be h i n d the trenches 

 much use is, of course, 

 found for wood of all sorts 

 and sizes, some novel uses 

 as well as many old stand- 

 bys. The corduroy road of 

 Civil War times and log- 

 ging camp stories is in evi- 

 dence, as A. R. C. ambu- 

 lance drivers are prepared 

 to testify. 



Rough log and board 

 shacks have sprung up aP. 

 over the war zone for use 

 as store houses, barracks, 

 hospitals and the like. 

 Many of the board shacks 

 are made of poplar boards 

 sawed from Lombardy 

 Poplars which lined so 

 many of the French high- 

 ways. 



Another interesting but 

 dissimilar use of wood 

 products is the making of 

 fake plantations along 



Photograph by P. L. Butlrick. 



ONE OF FRANCE'S RUINED VILLAGES 

 This was one of the stopping places in the German retreat after the battle of the Marne. The enemy 

 occupied a position near the village until the spring of 1917, when driven out by French barrage fire. The 

 destruction is complete. 



Pholograph Underwood & Underwood, New York. 



SOLE SURVIVOR OF AN ITALIAN BOMBARDMENT 

 Giving an eflfect much like an eagle with spreading wings, this remnant of 

 *.'"'" 'he only thing left even partially intact on the entire mo-intain 

 side of Mount Santo, which was taken by the Italianc The picture was 

 Uken by the Italian government. 



roadsides to screen troop and supply movements from 

 the enemy. At first, apparently, large numbers of young 

 pines were cut down and set up alongside the roads. 

 Later this gave place to the hanging of pine branches 

 on wire and frames supported by poles. Straw, grass 

 and burlap are used in the same fashion. How success- 

 ful this form of camouflage is can be realized only when 



one sees a road 

 from a high 

 o b s e r vation 

 tower through 

 a telescope or 

 from an air- 

 plane. 



From very 

 ancient times 

 the military 

 man has recog- 

 nized the value 

 oi forests for 

 cone ealment 

 from and de- 

 ception of the 

 enemy. The 

 American I n- 

 d i a n under- 

 stood this per- 

 fectly and used 

 it most suc- 

 cessfully, but 

 h i s descend- 

 a n t s serving 

 with the American Expedi- 

 tionary Forces may learn 

 much from tiie French. 



Not the least interesting 

 feature of my first day at 

 the front was the discovery 

 of the many and varied 

 activities of a modern army 

 and the actual army itself, 

 hidden away in a dense 

 young pine forest. Natur- 

 ally, little or nothing can 

 be told about this, but 

 much was strangely remi- 

 niscent of logging camps 

 "back home" log huts, 

 blacksmith shops, stables, 

 teams, narrow gauge rail- 

 roads, even felling opera- 

 tions, for military pur- 

 poses, of course. An acca- 

 sional Soixante Quinze, not 

 to mention guns of larger 

 calibre, might seem to sup- 

 ply a somewhat discordant 

 note to any logging camp, 

 but when a gun appears to 

 be merely a pair of wheels 



