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I AMERICAN FORESTRY I 



VOL. XXIV 



FEBRUARY, 1918 



IIHIIIHIIil! 



NO. 290 



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WAR MATERIALS FROM FRENCH FORESTS 



FRENCH forests yielding the growth of years for 

 the strengthening of the Allied armies ; American 

 foresters working under military control and with 

 the precision and efficiency of a Yankee industrial enter- 

 prise; scientific forestry applied to tree cutting with a 

 view to perpetuating the forests of war-stricken France ; 

 timbers produced where, when and as needed for the 

 success of the military operations of the armies of 

 France, England and the United States. 



In broad terms this is a composite of the impressions 

 brought from the French 

 war zone by Lieutenant- 

 Colonel Henry S. Graves, 

 National Army, who re- 

 turned early in February 

 to his office in Washington 

 to resume his duties as 

 United States Forester. 

 Blended therewith is the 

 picture of an international 

 war machine working in 

 harmonious efficiency with 

 the armies of the allied na- 

 tions employing every ef- 

 fort and resource in the 

 world war for the perpetu- 

 ation of Democratic insti- 

 tutions. In gaining these 

 impressions Colonel Graves 

 has had the exceptional op- 

 portunity given only to the 

 man who was early on the 

 ground and who has had an 

 active part in the general 

 scheme of things. His du- 

 ties have kept him in close 

 touch with foreign opera- 

 tions throughout a broad 

 field ; he has seen these ac- 

 tivities from the close range 

 of the man in charge of a line of work of great import- 

 ance in the military enterprise; and his observations 

 have been made through travel afoot and by motor. 

 Thus favored, Colonel Graves has brought back to 

 America a vision of the great war unusually compre- 

 hensive and of intense interest. Colonel Graves reached 

 France when the United States had been at war but a 

 few weeks. His arrival in Paris was within ten days 



AMERICA'S BEST-KNOWN FORESTER SOLDIER. ; 



Lieutenant-Colonel Henry S. Graves, as he appeared on shipboard after sev- 

 eral months of service in charge of Forestry operations in France for the 

 American Expeditionary Forces. 



of the arrival of General Pershing. Since that time 

 he has seen the American military program rapidly ex- 

 pand and spread out to its present magnitude. He has 

 seen his own immediate branch of the work grow in 

 proportion to the general expansion. The original plan 

 for forest and lumber work with the American Expedi- 

 tionary Forces contemplated a single regiment of 1,200 

 men. These men went forward last summer in the Tenth 

 Engineers (Forest). Commissioned as a major, Forester 

 Graves went across in advance to prepare the way and 



to map out the work of the 

 American foresters and 

 lumbermen. Early in the 

 autumn he was made a 

 lieutenant colonel. 



"When I reached 

 France," said Colonel 

 Graves to American For- 

 estry, "I found that the 

 program for American mil- 

 itary operations was devel- 

 oping on a much larger 

 scale than had been fore- 

 seen and that this had de- 

 veloped a greater problem 

 of forestry in connection 

 with supplying the Expedi- 

 tionary Forces with timber 

 for military needs. The 

 engineering feature o f 

 modern warfare is of great 

 importance. The need for 

 materials is tremendous, 

 not merely for trench build- 

 ing and other construction 

 at the front, but for trans- 

 portation lines, for road 

 building and for the erec- 

 tion of the various build- 

 ings required by an army, 

 to be used as barracks, hospitals, warehouses and for 

 other purposes. The use of wood for fuel is also an item 

 of immense importance. 



"The lumber and forest regiments had to be enlarged 

 to meet the expansion of the Expeditionary Forces. For 

 this reason the Twentieth Regiment was organized on a 

 large scale. It was made the largest regiment in the 

 world, because forest conditions necessitate the scatter- 



