840 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



American Red Cross Official Photograph 



American <ra i. B y the GRQUp QF ADMINISTRAT ION BUILDINGS 



To the right are seen the rounded backs of the rows of huts built for the refugees at a total cost of about ten dollars per hut. 



could be enforced to secure 

 the greed of individuals, 

 absence of such control, 

 throw responsibility for 

 economic consequences to 

 the wind and grab for the 

 immediate profit. 



In the United States the 

 struggle for public welfare 

 and the restraint of ruth- 

 less individualism has been 

 waged with more success. 

 Just in time, our great 

 mountainous public lands 

 of the West were establish- 

 ed as permanent national 

 forests and with the adop- 

 tion of the policy of pur- 

 chasing lands in the Appa- 

 lachians and White Moun- 

 tains, the economic error of 

 permitting these slopes with 

 their protective forest cov- 



public welfare and restrain er, to pass through the process of denudation which has 

 which will always, in the been completed in China, bids fair to be checked in time. 



It has never been claimed 

 by foresters or engineers 

 that results of equal de- 

 structiveness to those now 

 occurring in China would 

 follow the denudation of 

 forested slopes in this 

 country. But this is true 

 only because the combina- 

 tion of conditions here is 

 less dangerous. In the 

 Chinese plain, the water- 

 sheds of those rivers com- 

 prise 60,000 square miles of 

 very steep slopes, combined 

 with a soil of loess or wind- 

 placed silt and these con- 

 ditions are aggravated by 

 the flat gradient of the 

 rivers in the plains below, 

 and by their extremely 



Photograph by Frank N. Meyer 



NATIVE WOMEN CARRYING BUNDLES OF FIRE WOOD 



They start out very early in the morning to cut in the higher moun- 

 tains and late in the afternoon they are back home again. In this way 

 all chances of forests ever establishing themselves again are frustrated 

 and lumber becomes more and more scarce in western China. Near 

 Siku, Kansu, China. 



American Red Cross Official Photograph 



A GROUP OF FLOOD VICTIMS IN CAMP 



At the "American camp" where accommodations were provided for a thousand families. The south exposure of the huts makes it easy to keep 



them warm. 



