168 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



examined gave a record of three hundred years's growth. 

 Its life had been parallel with the white race in America, 

 and proudly it had watched the progress of a great de- 

 mocracy. But soon it would no doubt, make flooring for 

 some jazz-hall where careless youth "shimmied" and 

 "pivoted" in bacchanalian glee. Surely a fall of spruce 

 if not of man! 



The higher we climbed that mountain the more dis- 

 tressing grew the sight. The forest was being lumbered 

 clean, because, as the lumberman explained, the hill- 

 sides were so steep that the only practical method of 

 getting out logs was by rolling them down the mountain. 



Poor spruce, I knew them, Horatio, 

 the glories of America, and now "to 

 this favor have they come;" to be 

 knocked about by axes and kicked 

 down the granite steeps. Immor- 

 tal trees, dead and sent to mill, 

 may make a page to hold some 

 grocer's bill. 



Soon we had an answer to the 

 river's mournful song. One of the 

 upper tributaries came plungingdown 

 to the mother brook as though pur- 

 sued by some terrible and unnameable 

 thing. In the place of cold pure 

 mountain water the flow was muddy 

 with filth and polution from a lumber 

 camp above, where a hundred and 

 fifty men made the cataract their 

 sewer. Another branch we dis- 

 covered flowing through a quarter 

 of a mile of open timberland which 

 had been logged, and where the sun's 

 pitiless rays had dried moss and roots to parching. The 

 stream was almost dry in its bed. It was here we saw 

 with our own eyes the doom of Cold River and its many 

 tributaries. It was not difficult to picture the stagnant 

 mill-wheels, and to understand what the destruction of 

 the forests will mean to the entire country, with its mil- 

 lions of white-coal horse power dead. 



On the noble shoulders of the mountain no new gar- 

 ment is being thrown. Of all the cloth woven in the 



FATTENING AT THE EXPENSE OF THE 

 YOUNG FOREST 



merry mills where looms take their power from rivers 

 with their sources in the mountains, not one yard can 

 be spared to protect the father of the waters from the 

 heat of sun, and the tempests of winter. Reforestation 

 has hardly entered the heads of those great mill corpo- 

 rations distributing millions of dollars among their stock- 

 holders who depend for their living on Cold River and 

 other streams like it. One tree stands above all others 

 as valuable for this conservation of water. 



It is well known to those who read and think that the 

 spruce produces a network of roots with many small 

 fibers which act as a sponge for all moisture. It is due 

 to the spruce forests that streams 

 rising in the mountains keep fairly 

 even throughout the season, but with 

 the spruce gone, we may expect 

 parched river-beds through the dry 

 season, and to find them filled to 

 overflowing with torrents immediate- 

 ly after a heavy rain or a season of 

 melting snow. 



Why a government allows all this 

 ruthless destruction with no laws and 

 regulations for replanting as in older 

 countries is the present mystery of 

 a prosperous country. There are 

 European critics who maintain that 

 America with all its intelligence, its 

 public schools, and its high average 

 of literacy, is, after all, too ignorant 

 and too shortsighted to conserve 

 natural resources, and use intelli- 

 gently such products as nature has 

 furnished abundantly free of cost. 



Macbeth was told by the witches he need not fear for 

 his life until he should see Burnham Wood approach- 

 ing. Shakespeare, were he still mighty with his pen, 

 could easily predict for the United States unparalleled 

 prosperity until that day when the last of the forests 

 should be sighted on its way to the city ! Then, indeed, 

 disaster awaits us with our "rocks and rills, our woods 

 and templed hills." 



ENGLAND ACKNOWLEDGES GIFT OF SEED 



'"FHE following letter has just been received from 

 Lord Lovat, on behalf of the English Government, 

 following the arrival of the forest tree seed recently sent 

 to England by the American Forestry Association : 



"It was with great pleasure that we received your letter 

 of December 23, which accompanied the generous gift of 

 Douglas fir seed presented to us by your Association. 



"It was very good of you to remember that we especial- 

 ly desired the green Douglas fir, and we shall certainly 

 be able to put the seed to good use in our nurseries. The 



trees which we shall hope to obtain from our sowing 

 will undoubtedly assist us materially in restocking areas 

 which were so largely cut over during the war. 



"It is particularly gratifying that the good feeling ex- 

 pressed by your Association should take such an appro- 

 priate and practical form. I assure you that your good 

 wishes are most heartily reciprocated, and that the trees 

 which result from your gift will long remain as a re- 

 minder of the cordial relations which exist between the 

 two countries." 



