684 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



WITH A PUBLISHER PRESIDENT EDITORS 



EDITORS of the nation are ex- 

 pressing hopes that the next 

 President of the United States will 

 direct his efforts toward bringing 

 about the adoption of a National For- 

 est policy. The statement sent out 

 by the American Forestry Associa- 

 tion congratuating the country on the 

 fact that the next President would be 

 a publisher met with instant editorial 

 response, some of which we can show 

 in this issue. The Chicago Tribune 

 devoted one of its editorial leads to 

 the subject and this is on the cover of 

 this magazine. The co-operation of 

 the newspaper editors with the Ameri- 

 can Forestry Association is gathering 

 momentum for the big drive that will 

 follow the election. Some of the com- 

 ment follows : 



Sacremento Union: When the proper 

 balance is struck by the discerning his- 

 torian, who writes the annals of our pres- 

 ent epoch, he will not fail to put the proper 

 emphasis on the political recognition of our 

 economic needs as embodied in legislation 

 conserving the natural resources of the 

 country. 



Such a historian will find that such meas- 

 ures found scarcely any space in our statute 

 books until near the dawn of the twentieth 

 century. And he will find the presence of 

 such laws coincident with the decline of 

 our free land and the need for the inten- 

 sive development of a settled country. Un- 

 less such a historian is also a philosophic 

 student of human nature he will express 

 great astonishment at the careless and 

 prodigal wastage of our natural resources 

 marking the first century of our develop- 

 ment. It is not an exciting issue and it 

 is certainly not political in any of its as- 

 pects, but if the next administration should 

 adopt a sound and constructive program 

 for the restoration of our forests its niche 

 in the history of useful accomplishments 

 would be indelibly secure. 



Charles L. Pack, president of the Ameri- 

 can Forestry Association, pertinently points 

 out that the next President will be a man 

 who through his business connections' will 

 thoroughly appreciate the necessity of such 

 a policy. Both the candidates have always 

 secured their livelihood as newspapermen, 

 and both are now active publishers. The 

 present shortage of pulp wood for print 

 paper is painful evidence of the shortage of 

 timber now being faced by this continent. 

 Our depleted forests are now growing 

 only one-fourth of the amount of timber 



annually consumed by the various indus- 

 tries which must have wood. The situa- 

 tion is not only critical, but absolutely 

 hopeless unless the national government 

 intervenes with a constructive program for 

 reforestation. 



Canton News: The next President of 

 the United States can put his name in the 

 hall of fame if he will "start something" 

 looking towards a constructive policy in the 

 conservation of forests, according to the 

 opinion of Charles Lathrop Pack, presi- 

 dent of the American Forestry Association. 



Forest lands are being denuded of their 

 timber, but nothing of a definite character 



serious hardship to many publishers and 

 imposing heavy costs upon others. 



Both Senator Harding and Governor 

 Cox are newspaper publishers, and they 

 are passing through the experience of prac- 

 tically every newspaper in the United 

 States. Perhaps either of them will feel 

 so strongly on the subject, if elected, that 

 he will not be satisfied to delay the adop- 

 tion of a conservation policy any longer 

 than is necessary. 



POINTING A LESSON 



Paterson (N. J.) Press Guardian 



Perhaps no more unique memorial 

 was erected to Abraham Lincoln than 

 when John Finn of Decorah, Iowa, 

 went into the woods and found a 

 hackberry shoot which he trans- 

 planted in front of his home follow- 

 ing the assassination of the Presi- 

 dent. The tree has been nominated 

 for a place in the Hall of Fame for 

 trees with a history which is being 

 compiled by the American Forestry 

 Association at Washington. 



That tree teaches a powerful les- 

 son as to what could be done to- 

 ward correcting the forestry situa- 

 tion in this country. Fifty-five years 

 seems a long time to look ahead but 

 John Finn can span the years ana 

 span them quickly. There stands the 

 tree, a towering lesson and a warn- 

 ing. 



America must wake up and have 

 forest crops just as the country has 

 wheat and corn coming every year. 

 The way to do that is to have an In- 

 telligent national forest policy. 



is being done to insure that these forests 

 will be restored for the use of future gen- 

 erations. In pioneer days the important 

 thing was to strip the land of timber for 

 agricultural purposes, and the nation knows 

 how well it was done. 



President Pack is hopeful that the next 

 President of the United States will have a 

 practical appreciation of the importance of 

 a national policy that will conserve the 

 timber that is left in the nation, and that 

 he will urge upon Congress the necessity 

 of action that will protect the remaining 

 forests from devastation. 



Great quantities of the softer woods, 

 such as spruce, are used annually in the 

 manufacture of wood pulp, a considerable 

 part of which is converted into white pa- 

 per for newspaper printing. The difficulty 

 of getting this pulp is at present working 



New York Commercial and Financial 

 Chronicle: Now is the time of year when 

 there are more persons in the forests for 

 pleasure than at any other season. On 

 this account there are more persons think- 

 ing of the forests than in ordinary times. 

 Therefore this is the best of times to call 

 attention to what is necessary to be done, 

 and done without delay, if our forests are 

 not soon to vanish from the earth. The 

 gospel of forestry and reforestation is not 

 a matter of times and seasons; it is for 

 all times and all seasons. But in | 

 summer it ought to be easier to arouse in- 

 terest in it. 



Hence the call should be louder and 

 more insistent than ever right now. Let 

 us all resolve here and now to strive more 

 vigorously than ever to save the forests 

 we love so well, the forests that have 

 sheltered us from the heat in our vacations, 

 and given us some of the greatest pleas- 

 ures of our lives. A program with this end 

 in view has been outlined in the form of 

 demands for action by national and state 

 legislatures by the forestry committee of 

 the American Paper and Pulp Association, 

 and this has been indorsed by the Ameri- 

 can Forestry Magazine. 



Troy Record: Paper manufacturers and 

 forest experts of the United States and 

 Canada are meeting at a psychological 

 moment in New London, New Hampshire, 

 for discussion of forest protection. The 

 matter of forest protection is always time- 

 ly, but at this moment more than two hun- 

 dred and fifty forest fires in the district 

 south of the Campbell River in British 

 Columbia have been reported. Scores of 

 these are still raging, causing the destruc- 

 tion of thousands of feet of timber. 



Speaking before the New London Con- 

 ference, Charles Lathrop Pack, president 

 of the American Forestry Association, de- 

 clared that "our mature forests are no* 

 only being wiped out by destructive con- 

 flagrations as well as by numerous small 

 fires, but these fires also prevent the 

 natural reforestation of acres of cut-over 

 lands." Forest protection is a very serious 

 matter. Mr. Pack 'tils attention to the 



