52 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



AVENUE OF WORLD FRIENDSHIP GOOD 



M 



EMORIAL Tree planting, that has 

 carried the message of the trees into 

 every city and town of the country, is an- 

 other phase of the educational campaigns of 

 the American Forestry Association that 

 has met with hearty response on the part 

 of the editors of the land. At this opening 

 of a new year the association wants to ex- 

 tend all good wishes to the editors who 

 have taken up this message of the trees 

 and carried it on. Some of the editorial 

 comment follows : 



H^ashington Herald : On the Lincoln Me- 

 morial grounds there is to be an interna- 

 tional avenue of memorial trees. This is 

 a mighty appealing conception and will be 

 carried out under direction of Col. Sherrill, 

 in charge of public grounds. At the head 

 of the avenue will stand the two elms. Suc- 

 ceeding trees will be the gifts of other gov-, 

 ernments and probably native of their coun- 

 tries. All who visit the grounds may walk 

 this avenue of world friendship, an arbo- 

 real league of nations. 



It is quite appropriate that the elm was 

 chosen as the American tree. It is as fully 

 national as any of its habitats ; it is long of 

 life, is interwoven in more of American 

 history than is any other tree and is disr 

 tinctly a home tree. It is not militant. No 

 one would speak of a sentinel elm. It 

 is a tree of copious shade, of comfort and 

 solace. 



The planting ceremony was simple but 

 impressive. The dedicatory address was 

 made by Charles Lathrop Pack, president 

 of the American Forestry Association, and 

 Mrs. Harding assisted at the planting which 

 was done by the American Legion. It was 

 a feature of Armistice Week preceding 

 the opening of the Washington conference 

 and should be a good omen of releasing 

 the grip of the sword to take the clasp 

 of the hand. 



Chicago Post : In the city of Washington 

 two Armistice Elms are planted by the 

 American Forestry Association on the 

 grounds of the Lincoln Memorial, one elm 

 for the Army and one elm for the Navy. It 

 is understood that on Armistice day trees in 

 memory of soldiers who fell fighting in the 

 great war are to be planted in many cities, 

 towns and villages of the country. Trees as 

 memorials are more beautiful than anything 

 in bronze or in stone, and, in addition they 

 serve a useful purpose. 



The rapid disappearance of the forests of 

 the country is an old story. Every effort has 

 been made to save the timber, which is nec- 

 essary not only for building purposes but 

 properly to distribute the rainfall. Until 

 recently no real attempt to use our trees 

 and to have them has been made. Now some 

 of the lumber companies are replanting the 



desolate tracts. A sense of the loss of the 

 trees has come to the American people. 



It would hurt nothing if every day of the 

 year were the anniversary of some event in 

 history which would promote tree planting. 

 For every tree that is cut down in France 

 another is planted. If something of the kind 

 were done in this country posterity would 

 benefit 



Bethlehem, {Pa.), Globe: This country 

 will in years to come bless the American 

 Forestry Association which immediately 

 after the signing of the Armistice began a 

 campaign for the planting of memo- 

 rial trees. Organizations of all kinds wel- 

 comed the idea and especially in our own 

 state the planting of these trees in many 

 places where they were needed was taken up 

 with enthusiasm. That memorializing those 

 who helped the great war should take the 

 form of planting trees is to be highly com- 

 mended. 



Rocky Mountain News {Denver) : The 

 American Forestry Association must 

 have faith in the pacific conference 

 and the fruit that shall come forth 

 from it, for it planted the shoots of two elm 

 trees on the Lincoln Memorial grounds at 

 Washington to commemorate the gathering. 



If the conference succeeds, the trees will 

 be there to bear testimony to generation 

 following generation of the inception and 

 the inauguration of the movement; if the 

 conference fails, they will stand out as an 

 irony upon the fraility of human kind and 

 to mock the efforts of those who were 

 called statesman in their day to get a little 

 above the processes of the caveman. 



The elm tree is a symbol of fraternity. 

 The human family has taken to it kindly_ 

 It is stately, yet inviting. The poets love it. 

 Longfellow wrote of it : 



"And the great elms o'erhead 



Dark shadows wove on the aerial looms. 

 Shot thru with golden thread." 



In Tennyson the elm tree is a favorite as 

 it is of the English manor. The elm lives 

 long. The trees planted to herald the pos- 

 sible dawn of world-peace will spread their 

 branches with years-therein is their advant- 

 age over stone and metal, for memorials 

 made of these begin to fade as soon as they 

 are set in place, whereas the tree adds to its 

 growth from year to year and becomes a 

 benediction as it ages. 



Something of good will come from the 

 conference, we are sure, and the elms will 

 not have cause to shrink or feel ashamed as 

 the seasons go by. 



of nature. There is something appealing in 

 the latter which renders it far superior to 

 anything of the kind in stone or metal or on 

 canvas 



Cities and towns, nay, even villages, on 

 this side of the .'Atlantic that have been be- 

 reaved of their sons in the world conflagra- 

 tion of the second decade of the Twentieth 

 century cannot do better than to take a leaf 

 out of a book of the gold diggers of Ballarat 

 Australia and create memorial avenues, 

 lined on either side, not by stone or bronze 

 statues but by beautiful living maple or oak 

 trees that will bear their names and that will 

 develop and flourish with the growth of the 

 country. 



Afontreal Herald: Mere human art, no 

 matter how great the genius of the arti- 

 ficer, cannot begin to compare with the art 



Rochester Post-Express. .\n important 

 meeting in the interests of municipal for- 

 ests as a means of relieving the unemploy- 

 ment situation was held in Schenectady on 

 Friday at which the principal speaker 

 was Dr. Hugh P. Baker, executive secre- 

 tary of the American Paper and Pulp as- 

 sociation. Dr. Baker, in his address, stated 

 that America needs the municipal forest 

 not only to produce a valuable crop but to 

 avoid the economic waste of idle land and 

 at the same time to provide employment 

 for large numbers of men. 



It seems hardly credible that we have in 

 the United States to-day approximately 

 eighty-one million acres of loafing land, an 

 acreage so cut over and burned that artifi- 

 cial restocking is necessary. And yet this 

 land, if properly put to work, would pro- 

 vide enormous quantities of timber for our 

 wood using industries. At the present time, 

 there is pending in Congress, legislation 

 initiated by the American Paper and Pulp 

 association in cooperation with the Ameri- 

 can Newspaper Publishers' association, the 

 American Forestry Association and other 

 national organizations which would insure 

 the nation's future timber supply. 



In the state of New York, municipally 

 owned forests have already been instituted 

 but the movement is still in embryo. New- 

 burgh, Malone and other cities throughout 

 the state are annually planting municipal 

 forests through the efforts of the school 

 children on Arbor day. In the older coun- 

 tries of Europs the municipal forest sys- 

 tem has been in existence for hundreds of 

 years with the result that in the lean years 

 of business depression idle men are given 

 employment in planting, thinning and mar- 

 keting at a profit to each municipality, the 

 crop produced on these forests. It is a 

 splendid plan and should meet with favor 

 generally throughout the United States. 



Asheville Citizen: ^Forest reservations of 

 the country are coming into their proper 

 recognition by Congress. Representative 

 Woodruff of Michigan is the latest Con- 



