FORESTS INDISPENSABLE IN WAR 



17 



laboring in the throes of a new nationalism, is calling for 

 regiments of American foresters and woodsmen to hurry 

 wood from her forests to the front and to centers where 

 it can be utilized for war purposes. 



A regiment of American foresters and woodsmen is 

 already in France. Other regiments are being formed 

 to be sent as soon as equipped and trained. Thousands 

 of foresters trained at Yale and elsewhere and woods- 

 men trained in every forest from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific and from Canada to the Gulf will soon be busy 



Sea to the Swiss border. Rumors come to us that much 

 of this great forest has been cut for war purposes. In 

 my opinion the products from the Black Forest have 

 been a dominant factor in holding the German lines. It 

 is entirely possible that it has been a controlling factor. 

 Without them or other supplies of German wood, the in- 

 vaders would have been swept from foreign soil long 

 ago. Now we are told that the world war is straining 

 Germany's timber resources beyond the breaking point. 

 As I look back to those wonderful stretches of forest in 



Copyright Underwood & Underwood, New York. 



AMERICAN LUMBERMEN AT WORK IN THE WAR ZONE 

 Much of the work behind the British and French lines is being done by American Foresters and Lumbermen of the Tenth and Twentieth Engineers 

 (Forest). This picture shows some of the American workers engaged in the erection of a military structure. The picture is an official photograph 

 of the British government and shows operations on the British front. Before spring there will be several thousand additional Americans in 

 France with the Twentieth. 



behind the western front, hurrying wood from the forest 

 to the front. 



The products of French forests back of the English 

 and French lines are destined to continue a dominant 

 force in the Allied victory which we all pray for and 

 which every patriot believes in and is ready to fight for 

 and if necessary die to attain. 



The reconstruction of France after peace again reigns 

 over the earth will cry aloud for the rehabilitation of her 

 forests, that her forest capital, exhausted by the war, 

 may be re-established, may again be a potent factor in 

 her industrial development and a great, commanding as- 

 set in national defense. 



Germany, at the outbreak of war, had a vast forest 

 reserve, developed through generations of fostering care 

 and careful management. Her wartime demands for 

 timber, like that of the Allies, have been very great. Her 

 famous Black Forest, so near the western front, is play- 

 ing a prodigious part in the war drama from the Black 



Baden and Wurtemberg, known for centuries as the 

 Black Forest, with their great shafts of spruce and fir, 

 with their splendid roads, their attractive inns and won- 

 derful productiveness, I wonder if all the beauty is 

 gone. Has the Black Forest gone down before the ax 

 and saw ? I fear it has, and with the removal of the trees 

 has disappeared its chief attraction for the coming gen- 

 erations. 



Our own great nation, 3000 miles from the blood- 

 stained fields of Europe, is now calling for tremendous 

 quantities of wood for the needs of the army and navy 

 and for the use of our Allies. The Federal Shipping 

 Commission alone will require more than 1,000,000 feet 

 of the choicest timber to be found, and the construction 

 of barracks and other buildings for the use of the vast 

 army that we are now training and equipping will re- 

 quire about as much more. 



Only a few weeks ago I visited one of the , many 

 shipyards in Portland, Oregon. At this yard a fully 



