IM 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



stantial food consists of insects which it picks from holes 

 in decaying wood. It devours ants by the thousand. 



This small, beautiful, harmless bird is the creature 

 against which the boys of the North Shore woods have 

 waged ceaseless and senseless war until it has been ex- 

 terminated (or apparently so) in many wooded tracts. 

 These are the districts where ants and other insects arc- 

 now destroying the trees. It is naturally a tame bird. If 

 well treated it will fly about door yards and clean the 

 insects from the shade trees ; but it no longer does that in 

 some of the towns along the lake shore north of Chicago. 

 You may now walk through the five miles of beautiful 

 natural woods which have made Evanston famous and the 

 chance is that you will not see a woodpecker, though you 

 will not fail to see numerous trees patched with cement 

 to hide holes eaten by insects and fungus. The rifle in 

 the hands of the uncontrolled small boy has done its work. 

 The surviving woodpeckers know better than to venture 

 across the firing line. For them it is written : " Abandon 

 hope, all ye who enter here." A few miles west, beyond 

 easy hiking distance of the youthful gun-carriers, wood- 

 peckers are abundant on the trees and fences, bearing 

 witness to the fact that they have not fled the country 

 entirely, but have fled to zones of safety. 



Local instances of bird destruction and consequent 

 forest deterioration lose much of their general importance 

 if they are found to be only isolated cases. Doubtless 

 many instances like those about the North Shore villages 

 would be revealed by a search throughout the country. 

 In some places game wardens protect birds, and thereby 

 protect forests; and the boy with his rifle does not have 

 as smooth sailing as he has in some of the high-class 

 residential sections northward from Chicago. Every for- 

 ester knows, and most people in any way connected with 

 woods or the lumber business know, the incalculable ser- 

 vice which birds render the forests by destroying insects. 

 All intelligent farmers know how their crops are benefited 

 by the feathered inhabitants of the fields and thicket. 

 Yet, it appears that there is yet room for some primary 

 missionary work along this line. 



The two accompanying illustrations show results. The 

 broken snag was once a soft maple tree which stood a few 

 rods from the Central School, Evanston. It fell into poor 

 health and ants attacked it. It soon yielded to the attack. 

 The insects so weakened the trunk that it broke in a wind- 

 storm. The ants had penetrated to the centre and left no 

 sound wood, for decay kept pace with the burrowing ants. 

 The other picture shows a yellow oak near Asbury 

 Avenue, South Evanston. No woodpecker dares venture 

 there, and ants and other insects, and the associated 

 fungus, are doing their deadly work. The tree is now too 

 far gone to l>e saved. It is still alive, but will succumb 

 in a year or two. Birds might have saved it, but for 

 the boys and their rifles. 



These trees are samples only. Hundreds of others 

 could be found, showing the destruction by insects, aided 

 and abetted by the small boys and their rifles which have 

 driven the birds away. 



FOREST CONSERVATION 



By Joshua L. Baily 



Vice-President, American Forestry Association 



ARE not the forests themselves better authority on 

 conservation than anything I would be able to sug- 

 gest ? I have been much interested lately in some 

 thoughts concerning the longevity of trees, and their 

 reliability as time-keepers. 



Not long ago there died in one of the public institu- 

 tions in Philadelphia a woman who was said to have lived 



JOSHUA L. BAILY. OF PHILADELPHIA 

 Vice-President of the American Forestry Association. 



one hundred and twenty-eight years, but there was no 

 mark upon her person by which her age could be ascer- 

 tained, nor any record to establish the claim to longevity. 

 Tablets are found in the ruins of ancient cities bearing 

 inscriptions of much historical interest, but they are too 

 often lacking in accuracy. 



But the records kept by trees are devoid of all uncer- 

 tainty ; each tree keeps for itself what might appropriately 

 be called " a year book," in which is noted every year as 

 it passes. There are no omissions and no mistakes. 

 Whether the tree has lived a hundred-years or a thousand 

 years or four thousand years, the record is intelligible, 

 definite and infallible. 



