FORESTRY NOTES AND COMMENTS 



51 



ASIDE from the numerous edible mushrooms, roots, 

 fruits of shrubs and smaller plants, the trees of the 

 American forests afford a large variety of edibles. First 

 in importance, of course, are the native nuts beech nuts, 

 butternuts, walnuts, chestnuts and chinquapins, hazel 

 nuts and several kinds of hickory nuts, including pecans. 

 The kernels of all of these are not only toothsome but 

 highly nutritious and are used by vegetarians to replace 

 meat. The oil of the beech nut is said to be little inferior 

 to olive oil, while that of butternuts and walnuts was 

 used by some of the Indians for various purposes. The 

 Indians, it is said, also formerly mixed chestnuts with 

 cornmeal and made a bread which was baked in corn 

 husks, like tamales. In parts of Europe bread is made 

 from chestnuts alone. Several western pines have seeds 

 which play an important part in the diet of the local 

 Indians. Perhaps the best known of these is the fruit of 

 the nut pine or pinon, which forms the basis for a local 

 industry of some size. Not only is it extensively eaten by 

 local settlers and Indians, but large quantities are shipped 

 to the cities where the seed is roasted and sold on the 

 street. 



CHICAGO has entered upon a remarkable forestry 

 scheme. The city is to be completely surrounded by 

 woods, with the exception of the Lake Michigan side. 

 There will be a great half-circle of forest preserves start- 

 ing from the lake shore to the north, and running around 

 to the west and south, enclosing the whole suburban area. 

 About 1,000 acres have already been planted, at a cost 

 of $3,000,000, and $8,000,000 more is to be spent on the 

 project, under powers granted Cook county by the state 

 legislature. 



It is not a mere "reforestation" plan, making amends to 

 nature for the destruction of aboriginal forests. It is an 

 improvement on nature. Most of the area constituting 

 the new forest belt was open prairie land when the white 

 man first saw it. 



A N extensive lecture campaign on range management 

 ** is being conducted by the United States Forest Serv- 

 ice in district 4 in co-operation with the States Relations 

 Service of the Department of Agriculture. These illus- 

 trated lectures are devoted mainly to co-operative man- 

 agement of cattle on National Forest ranges. Approxi- 

 mately eighty communities within the intermountain re- 

 gion will be visited before spring. 



C OUTHERN pine mills are now cutting more ship 

 ^ timbers for the nation's wooden fleet than available 

 railroad facilities can transport to ship yards. Growing 

 seriousness of the car shortage is reported all through 

 the South. 



Considerably over a million feet a day of ship timbers 

 are now being cut by Southern pine plants, and with the 

 speeding-up program recently put into effect it is hoped 

 within a month to increase this to 2,000,000 feet a day. 

 A large number of additional cars will be necessary, 

 however, to move this stock to shipbuilding points. 



The car shortage is reported particularly bad along 

 the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. The Robinson Land and 

 Lumber Company, at Chicora, Mississippi, was recently 

 declared to be "snowed under" with government stock 

 that it was unable to ship, and repeated appeals for cars 

 have met with no response. The Batson-McGehee Com- 

 pany, at Milliard, Mississippi, was said a few days ago to 

 be entirely without cars, although it had ready for move- 

 ment seven carloads of ship timbers waiting to go to ship- 

 yards. A similar situation exists with the Marathon 

 Lumber Company, Laurel, Mississippi, also the Wausau 

 Southern at Laurel, and at many other points. 



Southern Pine Association inspectors write in from 

 all parts of the Southern pine producing territory that 

 "transportation difficulties are very serious and growing 

 worse." 



rpWO sales of timber, totaling 4,600,000 feet, on the 

 * Olympic National Forest, have been made to the 

 C. P. Adams Lumber Company, of Aberdeen, Washing- 

 ton. For 3,000,000 feet a price of $5.76, or $1.26 per 

 thousand higher than the advertised price, was obtained. 

 Spruce will be the only species cut, except for the small 

 amounts of cedar, Douglas fir, and hemlock needed in 

 logging operations. 



TH EN thousand soldiers are being sent into the woods 

 -* of the Northwest as the Spruce Production Division 

 of the Signal Corps. Their duties are to get out spruce 

 and fir for airplane stock. These men are volunteering 

 from Western National Army camps and from civil life 

 and from other services to counteract the trouble caused 

 by I. W. W. agitation in western lumber camps. A 

 monthly production of 15,000,000 board feet of spruce is 

 required to take care of the extra needs for the aircraft 

 construction program, and small operators are being en- 

 couraged to get out rived timbers in order to speed up 

 production. Four New York State College of Forestry 

 students have enlisted in these logging squadrons and 

 have left Syracuse for Vancouver Barracks. 



"DEGINNING with early spring, Gulf and Atlantic 

 '-' shipyards will launch a wooden ship a day, accord- 

 ing to J. E. Rhodes, secretary-manager of the Southern 

 Pine Association. The output of ship timbers by South- 

 ern pine mills has been doubled and now amounts to con- 

 siderably more than a million feet a day. It is hoped to 

 increase production eventually to 2,000,000 feet a day, 

 and enable shipyards to operate on 24-hour schedules. 



A LL Arizona supervisors of the United States Forest 

 -^*- Service have been appointed deputy health inspect- 

 ors by the State Board of Health. 



ADVERTISEMENT has been authorized for 24,000,- 

 000 feet of spruce and 750,000 feet of hemlock on 

 Long Island on the Tongass National Forest of Alaska. 

 This body of spruce is said to be as fine as any in 

 Alaska. It will be advertised in two blocks of 16,000,000 

 and 8,000,000 feet, at $2.50 per thousand for spruce and 

 50 cents per thousand for hemlock. 



