War Consuming Britain's Forests 



THE lumber needs of Great Britain, due to the un- 

 precedented demands of the war, and with supplies 

 from most other European countries cut off, are 

 so great that many of England's and Scotland's fine old 

 forests, many of her parks and the estates of private 

 owners are now being denuded of trees. The cutting 

 and the lumbering are being done by a Canadian Eorestry 

 Battalion, the 224th, and by Irish and Portuguese timber- 

 men, while two more battalions, the 238th and the 246th, 

 are now being recruited in Canada for service both in 

 England and in France. 



The 224th Forestry Battalion is doing most of its 

 work in the north of Scotland, cutting Scottish pine. 

 There is a company at work in the royal park at Windsor 

 Castle, cutting trees there, 

 and a third company at 

 New Forest in Hampshire. 



Eight sawmills have 

 been sent over from Can- 

 ada to England, six for the 

 224th Forestry Battalion 

 and two for the forestry 

 committee in England 

 which has supervision over 

 lumbering operations there 

 during the war. They are 

 mills typical of the Cana- 

 d i a n lumbering industry 

 and are generally known in 

 Canada as portable mills. 

 They are entirely new to 

 the British Isles and their 

 great efficiency is said to be 

 canting much interest. They 

 have each a capacity of 

 15,000 to 20,000 feet a day 

 and include the edger, slash 

 saw, saws for making rail- 

 way ties, etc., in addition to 

 their big 56-inch circular 

 saw. They have 40-horsepower locomotive boilers. 



The extent of the cutting is described by a London 

 correspondent who says: 



" Not even in the days of the Armada and the wooden 

 walls of England was there such* a tree felling as is now 

 going on in Gnat Britain. In every wood the sound of 

 the axe and the saw can be heard and lumber camps as 

 picturesque as any on the Missouri are to be found as 

 far apart as the Scotch fir woods and the Windsor and 

 New forests where the Canadian lumbermen are work- 

 ing. Behind the statement of Mr. Acland in the House of 

 Commons that the Home Crown Timber Committee had 

 been successful in securing supplies, there lies a story of 

 one of the best efforts that has been made by any Govern- 

 ment department to meet the present war emergency. 

 504 



224TH CANADIAN FORESTRY BATTALION 



The hardy woodsmen of this contingent of Great Britain's army were recruited 

 i? 'J 1 ' l umber camp* f Canada, and the men are now at work in the forests of 

 England. Two similar battalions are now being organized. 



" The emergency work of the committee has included 

 not only the importation of Canadian lumbermen, but the 

 importation of Irishmen and even of Portuguese who are 

 now employed in cutting pit props to supply the Welsh 

 coal fields. 



" By an order in Council under the Defence of the 

 Realm Act, the committee has been empowered to com- 

 mandeer all the timber resources of the country, but so far 

 their action has been limited to negotiation with the land- 

 owners, who, Mr. Acland says, ' have met them most 

 fairly.' This step was rendered necessary by the fact 

 that the Government had no large supply under its own 

 control. Britain was not alone in failing to anticipate 

 the consumption of timber which war would entail. In 



none of the belligerent 

 countries, not even in Ger- 

 many, had a proper esti- 

 mate been made of the de- 

 mand that would arise for 

 ash wood for wagons, for 

 fir for trench work, for 

 woods for hutments and 

 for the thousand other 

 needs of the army. 



" There remains, how- 

 ever, this difference, that 

 Germany and the other 

 countries had their supplies 

 at hand in the best possible 

 condition of storage in 

 their forests while the 

 British even now, when 

 tonnage has become so im- 

 portant a factor in the war, 

 are importing some six or 

 seven million cubic feet of 

 timber each week. If in 

 these circumstances the 

 German submarine warfare 

 had been more successful, 

 there would have been necessary a wholesale destruction 

 of British forests which would have laid England bare 

 for a generation. 



' Xow much is being done to use Britain's own natural 

 resources, and much more will probably be done during 

 next winter, if the war lasts as long. Some definite plan 

 must at once be laid down for afforestation after the war, 

 and the three essential things the Government at that 

 time must be certain about are, where to plant, what to 

 plant and whether they have got the plants to carry out 

 the scheme. Of these three the last comes first. 



" The plants must be ready when the labor released 

 after the war is available, and here a little war time dis- 

 covery on the part of the committee is worth mention. 

 They have discovered that Scotch fir makes better railway 



