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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



equipped wooden ship was slipping from the ways 

 every four weeks. A million feet of the choicest wood 

 went into each of these ships. Scores of shipyards, both 

 on the western coast and in the East, are searching the 

 country for wood acceptable for shipbuilding and taxing 

 the sawmills to their capacity for timbers suitable for 

 their purpose. Each of the cantonments now approach 

 ing completion has required more wood for construction 

 than that required for a modern town of 10,000 popu- 

 lation. 



This nation, fortunately, has vast reserves of virgin 

 timber which, if need be, can supply all our own require- 

 ments for national defense and provide necessary sup- 

 plies for our allies. A few weeks ago English and French 



many ways, and now we are learning in this great world 

 war that the nation having within its boundaries forests 

 adequate to supply the excessive demands of war, with- 

 out completely jeopardizing the needs that must neces- 

 sarily arise during the period of reconstruction after the 

 war clouds drift away, is not only stronger in war, but 

 necessarily must be stronger in the upbuilding of the 

 nation. This great world war is showing us more clearly 

 than heretofore the great importance of forest conserva- 

 tion. It is giving us a new light. It is showing us the 

 great need of the forest in national defense. 



In time our virgin forests with their vast resources of 

 timber will disappear. With their disappearance are we 

 to lose this important asset in times of peace and indis- 



Photograph from Underwood & Underwood, New York. 



WOMEN OF ENGLAND AT WORK AS LUMBERMEN 



As a result of the war's drain on Great Britain's man power women have been drafted into work heretofore regarded as exclusively for men. The 

 sturdy fir's here pictured are securely fastening a load of logs on the big lumber truck. Woman's adaptability is shown by the quickness with 

 which they learn to make the loads secure and able to withstand the jars of the rough roads over which the hauling is done. 



agents were in Washington and Oregon seeking supplies 

 of Sitka spruce of the choicest grades for their great air 

 fleets. More than $100 per 1000 feet b. m. was offered 

 for the product desired. 



Without timber in abundance this nation would be to- 

 day like a mighty giant without arms. I beg you to re- 

 member that scarcely an article of commerce is pro- 

 duced or brought to its point of utilization without the 

 use of wood in some process of its production, manufac- 

 ture or transportation. We have already learned that 

 there is no other natural resource that has anything like 

 so widespread an influence as the forest, that so inti- 

 mately touches the daily life of so many persons in so 



pensable asset in times of war, or are we to keep our 

 vast forest property intact by protecting it and by organ- 

 izing our absolute forest land for successive crops of 

 timber as our virgin stands disappear? 



Forestry is defined in its expression. American for- 

 estry is not the theoretical dissertations of technicians. 

 Attempt to define it today and before your definition is 

 completed it will have moved forward into something 

 else. American forestry is what the public wills it to 

 be. Its movement forward into what it ought to be in 

 order to best serve the public, both in times of peace and 

 in times of war, is attained by all of us thinking about 

 the right thing to do with our forests until we want to do 



