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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. 28 



FEBRUARY, 1922 



NO. 338 



THE VANISHING TRAIL 



By Arthur Newton Pack 

 European Commissioner of the American Forestry Association 



This, the third of the series of articles written by Mr. Arthur Newton Pack, who, as Commissioner for the American For- 

 estry Association, visited European countries to study forestry conditions, describes the aftermath of cuttings in France by 

 the Twentieth (Forestry) Regiment. In the March issue of American Forestry there will be an article by Mr. Pack on con- 

 ditions in Germany. Editor. 



^ij^^^' 



MOST of us at one time or another have witnessed the 

 dreadful aftermath of lumbering operations in 

 America ; a tangle of discarded trunks, tops and branches 

 with pillar-like stumps projecting through, a raging con- 

 flagration, and then that utter desolation which can only 

 be compared with the European battlefields. But if one 

 sets out to view the cutting of the 20th Regiment of 

 American Engineers (the Forestry Regiment), in France 

 with such a picture in mind, he is due for a decided sur- 

 prise. It is a long trail, the pursuit of that particular 

 branch of the A. E. F., and 

 its markings are growing 

 continually harder to find, 

 particularly without the 

 guidance of such men as 

 Colonel W. B. Greeley or 

 Colonel Henry S. Graves, 

 who helped to make it. Yet 

 its very dimness is one of 

 the crowning achievements 

 of American lumbering. 



Thousands of railway 

 ties and timbers for the 

 A. E. F. were cut in the 

 fine old oak and beech for- 

 ests of the Tourraine and 

 southern Brittany, and all 

 without leaving a single 

 acre of devastated waste. 

 It was done by the cutting 

 of selected trees previous- 

 ly marked by the French 

 forest rangers according to 

 precepts and practices more 

 than a century old. First 

 just a few trees are remov- 

 ed to allow the light to fil- 

 ter through the leaf canopy 

 and permit new seed to 

 germinate in the soil the 



W^t 



INSTEAD OF DEVASTATION AND WASTE THIS 



The photograph above shows how many ot the cuttings made 

 by American lumbermen in the hardwood forests of France look 

 today. In scientific forestry these represent different stages in 

 opening the forest to admit light for natural reproduction. 



everywhere under the old, down come the remaining 

 mother trees and it is only necessary to await the be- 

 ginning of the next cycle. 



What the American lumbermen did was simply to per- 

 form those various selective cuts, and Nature, unhind- 

 ered in her regular course, almost immediately hid the 

 scars. Of course it involved no mean skill, for France's 

 limited forest area permitted no wastage, even in war 

 time. It wasn't so much a case of low stumps as no 

 stumps, for the trees were cut practically level with the 



ground, and in addition 

 great care had to be taken 

 that the trees should fall 

 in exactly the proper di- 

 rection so as to do as little 

 injury as possible to the 

 young growth beneath. 

 Everywhere the French of- 

 ficials and rangers seemed 

 pleased with the American 

 work. 



Naturally they showed no 

 surprise. Lumbering has 

 for generations meant to 

 them just this kind of scien- 

 tific cutting. While, from 

 the American viewpoint we 

 marvelled when they indi- 

 cated as the site of a for- 

 mer logging camp not a 

 great bare clearing, such as 

 we see in America, but a 

 particular grove of trees 

 that appeared no different 

 from the surrounding for- 

 est, the real never-ending 

 wonder to the ordinary 

 ranger was the memory of 

 all the wealth and variety 



"seeding cut," they call it, then, several years later, a few of food of which he had partaken in the mess shack that 

 more old trees to give the young ones a better chance ; had stood between yonder two oaks. Then often lie would 

 and finally, when the new forest is safely established lead the way a few yards to one side and point to several 



