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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. XXV APRIL, 1919 



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NO. 304 



FRENCH FORESTS FOR OUR ARMY 



BY PERCIVAL SHELDON RIDSDALE 

 EDITOR OF AMERICAN FORESTRY MAGAZINE 



This is the second of a series of articles on the effect of the Great War on the forests of Europe, articles based on information 

 secured during a tour of Great Britain. France, and Belgium in December, 1918, and January and February, 1919, taken for the purpose 

 of investigating war-time forest losses and of ascertaining how best America can aid in restoring the forests of our Allies. Editor. 



Tours, France, January 30, 1919. 



HERE is the headquarters of the 20th Regiment of 

 Engineers composed of lumbermen and foresters, 

 the largest regiment in the world, and the organi- 

 zation upon which the American Expeditionary Force 

 depended for its lumber for war needs and for its fuel 

 wood. Here, since the organization was completed by 

 the merging of the two 

 battalions of the loth 

 Regiment, mostly fores- 

 try troops, with the 20th 

 Regiment, mostly lum- 

 bermen, Col. James A. 

 Woodruff, a West Point- 

 er and regular army of- 

 ficer, has been in com- 

 mand, with Lieut. -Col. 

 W. B. Greeley, of the 

 United States Forest 

 Service and a director 

 of the American Fores- 

 try Association, assisting 

 him in directing the 

 operations. 



Tours, being the head- 

 quarters for the S. O. S., 

 the Service of Sup- 

 ply for the A. E. F., 



and being the concentration station for the supplies which 

 are landed at Bordeaux, St. Xazaire and Brest, became 

 the natural place to locate the directing forces of the 

 20th Regiment which supplied the troops with so much 

 of the material which they needed in railroad, camp and 

 trench construction. 



Here it was possible not only to secure information 

 regarding the work of the regiment but also, by auto- 

 mobile to visit some of the lumber camps to see the con- 

 ditions under which the boys worked. The information 

 received, the impressions secured, the conditions exper- 

 ienced I pass on to the readers of American Forestry 



FRENCH FOREST LOSSES 



$800,000,000 is the general estimate of the war losses 

 and loss in reproduction value of the destroyed forests 

 of France. It is estimated that 16,960,000,000 board feet 

 of saw timber have been felled in the French forests since 

 the war started. Nine-tenths of this timber was used for 

 military purpqses. In addition, military operations have 

 destroyed 2,544,000,000 board feet, while the Germans 

 confiscated 2,968,000,000 board feet. The total estimated 

 drain on the French forests is, therefore, some 22,472,- 

 000,000 board feet. It would take France fully one hun- 

 dred years to fully recuperate from these forest losses, 

 for the productive capacity of the French forests has 

 been reduced about 424,000,000 board feet a year over 

 a very long period. Devastated forests in France cannot 

 be put to agricultural uses because the soil is of such a 

 quality that under French economic conditions the forest 

 crop is the most profitable one that will grow upon land 

 assigned for forest production. 



Magazine, not so much in the effort to give a detailed 

 account of the accomplishments of the regiment, which 

 will come in later articles, as to convey to them out- 

 standing facts which should be of the most general 

 interest. 



First then the feature which attracts attention at once, 

 the fact that it is the largest regiment in the world : 



The regiment is com- 

 posed of 49 companies 

 of approximately 25'j 

 men each, divided into 

 14 battalions and having 

 connected with it 36 En- 

 gineer Service Com- 

 panies or labor troops. 

 The regiment originally 

 was organized to contain 

 48 companies, but the 

 49th was added in 

 France, being composed 

 of members of the New 

 England Saw Mill Unit 

 who had spent almost 

 two years in cutting 

 in the Scotch forests. 

 Three officers and 90 

 men of this Saw Mill 

 Unit volunteered as a 

 nucleus of the 49th Company of the 20th Regiment and 

 the full complement of the company was secured by get- 

 ting men from other organizations. 



The chief forest cutting of the regiment was in the 

 Vosges section with Epinal as the headquarters of the 

 operating companies. The forests there were chiefly of 

 Scotch pine, fir and spruce. At Eclaron was the largest 

 single installation, a mill capable of shipping, as it did, 

 an average of five thousand ties a day. This mill was 

 situated in the forests of Argonne and furnished lumber, 

 largely duck boards, bridge timbers, piles and poles, etc., 

 for the 1st and 2nd Armies. Colonel C. S. Chapman, 



903 



