HOW THE AMERICAN ARMY GOT ITS WOOD 



1149 



A LOAD OF PILING APPROXIMATELY 70 FEET LONG ON MOTOR 

 TRUCK AND TRAILER GOING AROUND SHARP TURN IN THE 

 ROAD IN A FRENCH SPRUCE FOREST. OPERATIONS OF 20th 

 ENGINEERS 



sunny day among a long series of rainy ones made it 

 possible to get under cover without wetting men and 

 supplies. The underbrush was cleared from the camp 

 site, and trees felled to make room for the pyramidal 

 tents. Kitchens were soon ready to serve hot meals to 

 the long lines of hungry men. Bed sacks were filled with 

 straw and for the first few nights were placed direct on 

 the wet sand ; water oozed up through that sand for days. 

 As soon as possible lumber was obtained from nearby 

 French mills to be used in flooring the tents and in build- 

 ing bunks. Sjbley stoves installed in the tents improved 

 conditions and men no longer had to go to bed right 

 after supper to keep warm. Although there was plenty 

 of wood handy on the camp site, it was all sappy and 

 wet, and dried out very slowly during the winter. For 

 fully two months it was necessary to buy dry wood for 

 the kitchens. At this time dry pine wood was selling 

 in Bordeaux at twenty-two dollars per cord; it was less 

 expensive, of course, in the forest near Pontenx. Wells 

 were dug through two or more layers of hard pan to get 

 away from the surface water, and even the water so 

 obtained was chlorinated before it was put in the lister 

 bags, or 'Carrie Nation cows' as they were familiarly 

 known, for the men to drink. Kitchen refuse was partly 



burned in incinerators and partly fed to hogs. The hogs 

 turned out to be an important source of profit to the 

 company funds ; young pigs weighing twenty to twenty- 

 five pounds were bought from the natives for about 

 twenty dollars per head, and after a few months' feeding* 

 until they had reached a weight of about two hundred 

 pounds they were sold in the French markets at about 

 seventy dollars per head. 



"This camp at which American forestry operations 

 began in the Landes was in a section of the country quite 

 typical of the two and three-tenths million acres of pine 

 forest which border the Atlantic and at places extend 

 sixty miles or more inland in Southwestern France. 

 Originally a worthless, sandy, marshy waste, it has been 

 reclaimed by drainage and the planting of forests of 

 maritime pine until now it is one of the richest portions 

 of France. The region is now about eighty per cent 

 forested with even-aged stands of trees of different ages 

 up to sixty years in the different stands. The unforested 

 area consists of small lakes and highly cultivated little 

 farms scattered through the forest; the farmers work 

 both on their farms and in the adjoining forests, thus 

 furnishing a stable supply of labor for the forest work. 



"Timber operations were started immediately by small 

 crews, while other crews continued the work of settling 

 camp. The first work was that of getting out piling, 

 greatly needed for the construction of American docks 



THE LUMBERJACKS AND FORESTERS HELPED TO BUILD TELE- 

 PHONE SYSTEM PLATFORMS IN FRANCE WHICH WERE LIKE 

 FIRE LOOKOUT STATIONS IN OUR OWN FORESTS. 



