AMERICAN FORESTRY/ 



VOL. 28 



OCTOBER, 1922 



No. 346 



WEST PERSIA~THE WOOD -FAMINE COUNTRY 



By Edward C. M. Richards 



W/"EST PERSIA is now a land of famine, both food 

 " famine and timber famine, although the food fam- 

 ine attracts the most attention. Nevertheless the fact 

 remains that the food famine is paralleled by a timber 

 famine which is much more permanent and much harder 

 to overcome. The news from West Persia for the past 

 few years has been largely filled with the food needs of 

 this ancient land, but for hundreds of years the fuel, 

 timber and forest products famine has been always pres- 

 ent and always a crying need to those who had eyes to 

 see and ears to hear. But because West Persia is one 



foot mountain range of Kurdistan which follows on its 

 eastern edge an irregular line from Mount Ararat 

 down to the Persian Gulf and which marks the boundry 

 between Persia and Turkey. To the east the Caspian 

 Sea lies several thousand feet below the level of the 

 great plateau on which all of Persia stands. The prov- 

 ince extends some two hundred miles south from the 

 Persian-Caucasian boundry and is the most fertile and 

 beautiful part of Persia. 



To us here in America where there is such an abun- 

 dance of wood and such a large variety of species of trees 



SACUKIJ KLM TKKE.S OUTSIDE A MOSQUE. CAREFULLY GUAKDED, THESE MAGNIFICENT TREES ARE A REMINDER OF THE 

 LUXURY OF TREE GROWTH PREVALENT IN PERSIA IN THE DAYS OF HER GLORY BEFORE RECKLESS WASTE OF A FORMER 

 GENERATION MADE HER PEOPLE OF TODAY SUFFER A WOOD FAMINE. 



of the most out of the way places on earth little has 

 been heard of it and practically nothing has come to us 

 here in the way of information regarding the wood fam- 

 ine existing there. 



By West Persia this article means the extreme north- 

 west portion of Persia and includes that portion of the 

 country known as the Province of Azerbijan. This 

 province lies directly south of the former Russian Prov- 

 ince of Trans-Caucasia, or what is better known as the 

 Southern Caucasus. To the West rises the great 13,000 



it will be interesting and helpful to consider briefly some 

 of the results of a timber famine so that the seriousness 

 of forest devastation in a country may be better ap- 

 preciated. 



Take first the matter of fuel as one of the first ne- 

 cessities of all men. There are some low grade coal 

 measures in West Persia but they have not been devel- 

 oped beyond the point where a man with a pick and 

 shovel digs what he can out of a shallow hole in the 

 grounds, and as the coal is full of sulphur and is very 



