334 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



writers, calling attention to this fact, insinuate that the 

 Germans knew the war was coming and imported as 

 much timber as possible in order to conserve her own 

 supplies, and to be able to provide for the expected large 

 demand by the military in case of war. 



As regards Belgium then, it would not be at all sur- 

 prising to learn, when 

 the war is over, that 

 there remains on Bel- 

 gian soil no timber of 

 commercial value ; that 

 her scenic forests have 

 been wiped out, and 

 that thousands of her 

 roadside and street 

 trees have been used 

 for fuel and for other 

 purposes by the Ger- 

 mans. 



THE DAMAGE IN FRANCE 



IN northern France, 

 on both sides of the 

 fighting front, great 

 damage has been done 

 the forests not only by 

 the tremendous bom- 

 bardments which have 

 marked the fighting 

 there, and by the hail 

 of bullets from small 

 arms which have swept 

 forested spaces, but by 

 the trench builders, the 

 road engineers, and 

 others w h o needed 

 timber for construction 

 work. Thousands of 

 new roads or passage- 

 ways have been built 

 for the rapid transpor- 

 tation of guns, muni- 

 tions, supplies, and 

 men, to thousands of 

 points along both 

 fronts. Many of the 

 roads or passageways 

 are of the type known 



as corduroy roads, the base being made of tree trunks, 

 overlaid with branches and these branches overlaid with 

 earth. These roads alone have necessitated the cutting of 

 thousands upon thousands of trees. In the lining of 

 trenches and the building of shelters there has been un- 

 ceasing demand for more and more timber, and when it 

 has been on hand in the shape of single trees, groups of 

 trees, woodlands or forests it is fair to assume that it has 

 been freely used. 



In addition the destruction by shot and shell has been 

 tremendous. Trees that have not been blown down or 

 cut through or shattered have been so badly damaged 



Photograph by Underwood & Underwood. 



THE TOOTHPICK FOREST 



This is the name given by the Germans to this devastated woodland where the 

 artillery and small-arm fire has stripped the trees left standing of their 

 branches. This forest is in Flanders and the ground has been fought over 

 several times. The picture is a striking indication of the quantity of lead and 

 iron which must have swept through the trees to damage them as they are 

 damaged. 



that they will die; others, pitted with bullet holes or 

 wounded by other shot, are now open to disease or in- 

 sect attack, while there are long stretches of forested 

 lands the condition of which is so graphically illustrated 

 by some of the photographs used with this article. A war 

 story from France recently contained the following 



statement : 



"On a trip behind 

 the French front one is 

 inevitably impressed by 

 the immense amount of 

 work not strictly of a 

 military nature which 

 the army does. First 

 there have had to be 

 built hundreds of miles 

 of new standard and 

 narrow gauge railroad 

 to feed the trench line. 

 Then comes the ques- 

 tion of roads. All old 

 highways are kept in 

 perfect repair and 

 thousands of miles of 

 new road are con- 

 structed. In the region 

 called the Champagne 

 Pouilleuse the road 

 question was a particu- 

 larly difficult one. 

 Loads of stones are 

 swallowed up without 

 much effect. So logs 

 are laid side by side 

 and corduroy roads 

 built. There are hun- 

 dreds of miles of these 

 corduroy roads and 

 over them pass heavy 

 artillery, motor trucks 

 filled with shells, and 

 other large vehicles. 



"Immense quantities 

 of wood are used by 

 the army. Soldiers' 

 cantonments, ambu- 

 lances, water installa- 

 tions and the corduroy 

 roads all call interminably for wood. For this purpose 

 temporary saw-mills are established just in the rear of 

 the fighting zone. All this work is done with a remark- 

 able elimination of waste." 



What has happened in the forest of Argonne where 

 there has been so much desperate fighting is indicated in 

 a newspaper dispatch which says : 



"When the history of the present European war is 

 written, the forest of Argonne will be recorded as the 

 place where more blood was shed than in any other 

 spot on the wide fields of conflict. The French made a 

 stand there on the first German drive towards Paris, 



