144 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



wc are told. Vet. when we come to investigate we find 

 that ordinary .timber prices in Europe are not a great 

 deal higher than those which we have had to jiay from 

 time to time. No. there is another factor which enters 

 in. and that factor is coal. Forestry had its beginnings 

 in Europe not in a demand for lumber but in a demand 

 for fuel wood for heating buildings where men lived. 

 The traveller in Europe seldom finds central heating and 

 coal furnaces unless it be in the larger and more modern 

 cities. Europe has not the coal to do it. The old-fash- 

 ioned air-tight wood stove is everywhere and not coal but 

 wood is king. 



What does this mean to 

 growing forests? Simply 

 that the tops, branches, and 

 even the twigs, for all of 

 which we have little use, 

 bring high prices as fuel, 

 and it is their utilization 

 which returns the extra 

 cost of planting. When a 

 town or private owner 

 plants out the land a great 

 many more seedlings must 

 be used than are eventually 

 desired as mature trees ; 

 first, because many will die 

 of their own accord ; and 

 second, because unless 

 trees are planted very close 

 together during the first 

 few years they become 

 squat, limby, and of less 

 value. In Continental Eu- 

 rope the removal and sale 

 of the weakling trees and of 

 the necessary thinnings for 

 the health of the fore 

 will often, after fifteen 

 years, pay back the entire 

 original investment, and 

 there is no interest to accu- 

 mulate and compound. In 

 America we can get prac- 

 tically no return until a 

 cycle of forty or sixty 

 years at least is run. 



In England, people burn coal not only in the factories 

 and furnaces, but in their open fire])laces, a habit of many, 

 many years. Yet there, too, they are planting out new 

 forests and expect that the investment will pay ; and it 

 will pay, not i)erha])s so well as some other high yield 

 investments, but because England must have the wood 

 for luntber and realizes that the foreign sources upon 

 which she was accustomed to draw are running dry. Al- 



IN A MUNICIPAL FOREST 



The municipal forest movement in all probability originated in 

 France. This beautiful forest of spruce, owned by the French 

 government, yields from its annual growth a generous supply 

 of timber for the surrounding neighborhood, pulpwoorf for paper 

 manufacturing, and bark for the tanneries. Under a careful 

 system of selective cutting, it continually reproduces itself. 



though she cannot get the same high returns from fuel 

 wood and early thinnings as in P'rance and Germany, 

 she does believe that by the time these new forests 

 do come into real production, half a century from now, 

 the people would rather foot the bill than go without 

 lumber. The British government is doing everything 

 it can to make that bill as small as possible. The obstacles 

 of habit in wood utilization are squarely faced, and en- 

 deavor is being made to meet the competition of coal 

 and introduce a more complete utilization of wood than 

 has as yet been known. 



Here is a plan which we can well consider. Many 



of its phases have already 

 been incorporated into 

 Federal and State forest 

 laws of the United States, 

 but we are still behind all 

 of Europe in appreciating 

 the growing necessity for 

 really active measures of 

 forest development. As 

 has been shown in pre- 

 vious numbeis of the 

 American Forestry Maga- 

 zine, the experience of a 

 number of our private 

 lumbering corporations in 

 the east and south demon- 

 strates how a closer utili- 

 zation of forest products 

 and a more careful system 

 of cutting to encourage 

 natural reproduction is al- 

 ready justified in the terms 

 of profits. Now we see 

 that, in appreciation of the 

 changing attitude of our 

 wood using industries, a 

 few of our towns, partic- 

 ularly in New York state, 

 are taking the risk in 

 planting municipal forests, 

 and who can doubt that 

 their foresight will be' 

 justified with generous re- 

 turns. The destruction 

 by fire of mature forests 

 and areas of second growth remains our most serious 

 ])roblem. If we can only make every man, woman and 

 child appreciate the danger of fire and eliminate it to the 

 degree that European nations have done, we will 

 soon find ourselves well on the road to realize that 

 perpetual forest dream, and insure for all time a steady 

 and constant supply of the wood and paper upon which 

 we all depend. 



