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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



reasonable to anticipate its extension to other States, of the various aspects of conservation of our natural 

 Any plan that will bring together for united effort the resources certainly has merit and should receive all pos- 

 great host of people who are interested in one or more sible encouragement. 



'A LOOK FORWARD, NOT BACKWARD" 



ONE of the noteworthy events of February in the 

 forestry world was the celebration by the Society 

 for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests of the 

 twentieth anniversary of its founding. Twenty years is 

 a relatively long period in the forestry movement in this 

 country, and the Society has the distinction of being one 

 of the pioneers in the work. In local affairs it has done 

 much to encourage forest conservation by its unfailing 

 support of progressive measures, and the acquirement of 

 Crawford Notch by the State was chiefly due to its 

 efforts. In the national field it may justly claim credit 

 for having contributed materially to the passage of the 

 Weeks Law providing for Federal acquisition of forest 

 lands on the watersheds of navigable streams and for 



the protection of such watersheds from fire in co-opera- 

 tion with the States. 



The Society very wisely, however, refused to allow its 

 two-day birthday party to dwell too exclusively on past 

 achievements. The motto for the occasion, "A Look 

 Forward, Not Backward," furnished the keynote for 

 most of the talks. Colonel Greeley, who also addressed 

 the New Hampshire Legislature and the Massachusetts 

 House of Representatives, spoke on "A National Forest 

 Policy," in his advocacy of which he is warmly sup- 

 ported by the Society. Altogether the celebration con- 

 stituted a worthy celebration of twenty years of public 

 service. American Forestry hopes that the future of 

 the Society will be even more prosperous than its past, 

 and that both its record and its watchword may serve as 

 an inspiration to others. 



CONSERVATION BY WOOD USING INDUSTRIES 



'"PHE youthful Association of Wood-Using Industries, 

 -*- organized last summer, has ambitious plans. Its 

 purpose "is to establish unity of aim and effort among 

 all industries using wood with reference to their princi- 

 pal basic raw material, and to mobilize the influence and 

 resources of these industries to protect and conserve the 

 sources and utilization of this fast diminishing supply." 

 One of its first activities was to assist in formulating the 

 Snell Bill for a national forest policy. Now it is en- 

 deavoring to reduce waste in the utilization of wood 

 through a Committee on Conservation and Standardi- 

 zation. 



The primary object of this committee is to reduce so 

 far as possible the enormous waste that now exists in the 

 use of dimension stock. Just how enormous this waste 

 may be is indicated by the statement of a prominent wood 

 turner that it sometimes requires two tons of lumber to 

 produce 400 pounds of handles. Much of the loss in this 

 and other industries is due to the> fact that practically all 

 dimension stock is manufactured from plank rather than 

 direct from the log. High costs of lumber and of trans- 

 portation have so far failed to stop this tremendously 



wasteful practice, which persists largely because there 

 are no official standardized lists of dimension stock. 



The standardization committee of the Association of 

 Wood Using Industries has undertaken to remedy this 

 situation. It hopes to do so both by securing the general 

 adoption of standard sizes for the principal dimension 

 requirements and by bringing about more careful and 

 efficient methods of manufacturing. This is a far-reach- 

 ing program of great significance. Industries using 

 small dimension stock now consume some five or six 

 billion board feet each year, or at least a sixth of the 

 total lumber cut. It is probable that there is not one of 

 these industries in which an equally good product could 

 not be turned out with from 10 to 20 per cent less mate- 

 rial, and some have even gone so far as to predict the 

 possibility of meeting all requirements for small dimen- 

 sion stock from timber now wasted. Could a more 

 effective means of promoting forest conservation be 

 imagined? We hope that the efforts of the committtee 

 to bring order out of chaos, efficiency out of inefficiency, 

 will be aided by the hearty co-operation of the wood- 

 using industries in general. 



WIDESPREAD INTEREST IN STATE FORESTRY 



C TATE forestry is on the eve of a remarkable develop- 

 *-* ment if one can judge from the interest being mani- 

 fested throughout the country in various phases of State 



forest legislation. Most of the legislatures are now in ses- 

 sion, and in practically all of the timbered States, forestry 

 bills already have been or are expected to be introduced. 



