A GERMAN FORESTER S VIEWS 



From a Letter Written by 

 DR. C. A. SCHENCK 



When Mr. Arthur N. Pack went to Europe last summer as Commissioner for the American Forestry As- 

 sociation, to study forestry conditions and forestry needs of Great Britain, France, Belgium and Germany, he 

 took with him a letter to Dr. C. A. Schenck, of Hesse-Darmstadt, a well-known forester. Dr. Schenck spent 

 many years in the United States and conducted the Biltmore Forest School. Returning to Germany several 

 years ago, he still keeps in touch with American forestry conditions and his views, here expressed in a letter 

 to the Editor, are interesting. Editor's Note. 



On July 21st you have given a letter of introduction to 

 me to Mr. A. N. Pack, when he went on his European 

 errand of forest investigation. Mr. Pack may have told 

 you, in the meantime, that he gave me, instead of I my- 

 self giving it to him, the most pleasant time I have had 

 in many a long year. We traversed the old stamping 

 grounds of Sir D. Brandis and of Sir Will. Schlich, later 

 on those of the Biltmore Forest School, in Southwest 

 Germany, and we had a glorious time on the spree! 

 c Prior to Mr. Pack's visit, I had abandoned all thought 

 o.f forestry. What use is there that was my daily slo- 

 gan of nursing seedlings so long as children remain 

 absolutely un-nursed? What use is there of forest protec- 

 tion so long as thousands of children remain without 

 protection? And what is the sense of estimating timber 

 so long as we neglect to estimate the benefits accruing 

 from that old and decrepit stick of timber which stood, 

 2,000 years ago, on Golgotha, and which had the shape 

 of a cross ? 



Those were my thoughts, with the result that I de- 

 clined any participation in forestry work. 



Yet when A. N. Pack came to me, when we visited the 

 forests, when we talked shop, 25 hours a day ^when I 

 licked blood I changed my mind rather abruptly. 



Blame me if you can 1 



Fortunately, the condition of my wards, the German 

 children and notably the children in Darmstadt, has 

 much improved in the course of the last twelve-month. 

 The cheeks are reddening, the eyes are brightening, the 

 little stomies are filling; the fathers, factoiy hands, are 

 fully employed, and help on a large scale is certainly to- 

 day less needed than it was heretofore, before the Ameri- 

 can Quakers and many other good Americans came to the 

 rescue. 



Indeed, Mr. Pack and I, touring through woods and 

 villages and cities, were struck by what "prosperity" 

 seemed to prevail everywhere. 



Of all the resources which the war has left to Germany 

 the forests stand most intact. In the Spessart, in the 

 Black Forest, in the Odenwald, in state, private and city 

 forests, there is approximately the same stand of timber 

 which was there prioj- to 1914. There are some large- 

 sized cuttings, in lieu of the small coupes otherwise en 

 vogue in Germany; the most accessible timber was re- 

 moved rather than trees more evenly distributed over the 



entire areas. Certain species, like white ash, have been 

 badly reduced by the requirements of the airplane. Yet 

 on the whole no harm done ! Nevertheless, without these 

 forests, Germany would have been beaten in 1915. The 

 forest was yielding timber for guns and gunstalks, cellu- 

 lose for high explosives, fuel in lieu of coal, fibre band- 

 ages for the wounded, lumber for the trenches, food for 

 horses and cattle and goats, oil, (beechnut oil) in lieu of 

 olive oil, turpentine and rosin (on a small scale I admit), 

 and comfort to many a troubled mind finding refresh- 

 ment in the forest air, in nature; also lots of work was 

 made available for many people who were without em- 

 ployment. Indeed, if Germany had won the war the for- 

 esters might have claimed that the German forests were 

 responsible for the victory. Never have the forests been 

 proving their economic worth, in an emergency, to a 

 greater extent than it was done in Germany of late years, 

 even today ! Foodcrops alone won't help ; forests, forests 

 well distributed all over the country are an economic 

 necessity, in any emergency. How would the U. S. A. 

 have stood, during the war without them? What would 

 the people do if there were owing to strikes or for other 

 reasons a sudden interruption of the coal supply? 



Naturally, I have been much interested in the Capper 

 and Snell bills now before Congress. Queerly, we have 

 tried, in America, to establish forestry always where its 

 establishment was of least economic direct influence. So 

 in the 80s of the last century, in the prairies ; who thinks 

 of prairie planting such as was then advocated, in this 

 year 1921 ? So in the 90s, when the most remote moun- 

 tain fastnesses in the Far West were set aside as "for- 

 est reserves." 



So today when we try to perpetuate the timber supply 

 where it still exists, in the extreme West and South, in- 

 stead of engaging in constructive forestry close to the 

 densely settled sections of the East, where there are mil- 

 lions of acres lying unproductive because they are fit 

 for nothing but for constructive forestry. 



I do not believe that any good can come from forestry- 

 compulsory laws, or from forestry practiced at the land- 

 owner's loss. At 50 cents a bushel, no wheat will be pro- 

 duced, all congressional legislation or Lenine legislation 

 in Russia notwithstanding; nor will cotton be produced 

 at 5 cents a pound. The people must pay a price at 

 which it pays to produce wheat and cotton. 



