AMERICAN FORESTRY 



1553 



STEADY "WAKE 'EM UP" BARRAGE 



*. 



THE TRIBUNE CALLS FOR ACTION 



UNDER the heading "Factories Peril Own Lives 

 With Trees They Kill," the Chicago Tribune takes 

 up the campaign of the American Forestry Asso- 

 ciation for a national forest policy. The Tribune bases 

 its drive on a purely business argument and warns the 

 industries of the Middle West in the following language : 



"Approximately a fifth of the manufactories of Illinois, 

 Indiana, and Ohio depend on wood for their running. 



"In from ten to twenty years, at the present rate of 

 unregulated cutting, unattended as it is by any system- 

 atic replanting, the lumber from the South will be ex- 

 hausted. 



"Then the Pacific Coast will be good for forty years, 

 but it will be too expensive for the purposes of our fac- 

 tories to ship timber so far. Hence the factories will 

 either succumb or be moved into the Pacific area. In 

 either case we shall lose them. 



"In these three states of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio 

 there is a great deal of soil that should not be farmed, if 

 it is, because that soil is so poor that it does not pay the 

 farmer a fair return for extraordinary severe effort. 



"Some specialists estimate this unprofitable area at one- 

 sixth of the total area of the three states. This estimate 

 probably is excessive. 



"On many of these farms people do manage to eke 

 out an existence, but it is a growing economic waste to 

 have generation after generation continue the struggle. 



"But trees don't need so much humus as grains and 

 grasses do. Trees are a mineral feeding proposition. 



"You can grow good trees where you cannot grow 

 good barley. 



"Not dabbling in prophecy, but considering the fore- 

 going facts, the state and county forests of Illinois, 

 Indiana, and Ohio have formed, on the initiative of 

 Ranson E. Kennicott, chief forester of the Cook County 

 Forest Preserve, the Central States Forestry Associa- 

 tion. 



"The new organization hopes to hold its first meeting 

 in Chicago next April. 



"Its object is to formulate a tri-state forestry policy 

 and urge upon the state governments the necessity of ex- 

 treme measures of forestation and reforestation, and the 



establishment of a system of restricted cutting that shall 

 be in some proportion to the amount of replanting. 



"The estimate of some members of the association, 

 notably Mr. Kennicott, is that the three states could 

 profitably put something like a seventh of their area into 

 commercial forestry. 



"The association bases its campaign on both the natural 

 and the commercial advantages to be derived from a 

 liberal policy of reforestation. 



"First, the trees -are needed to conserve moisture and 

 prevent erosion, which is progressing in late years at an 

 alarming rate. 



"Second, the three commonwealths cannot retain their 

 wood-using industries if they don't provide the wood 

 for them. 



"State authority and state aid in reforestation will be 

 asked because private capital is not going to go into a 

 proposition that looks as far forward as forty to sixty 

 years for the richest part of the return. It's got to be 

 the state. 



"On the other hand, reasonably prompt returns are not 

 excluded if the system of forest management be com- 

 prehensive. 



"If you have absolutely to reforest bare land it will be 

 about forty years before you can get a steady income 

 from it. 



"But from second growth and coppice areas, if treated 

 scientifically, you can get a revenue in ten years. 



"The first thing you get out, by a scientific treatment, 

 is eight-inch ties. And if you treat a hickory forest right 

 you get your revenue just as soon as you can cut ax 

 handles. Five-inch hickory gives four ax handles. 



"Here is an important point : There has been a kind 

 of superstition among foresters that not more than $10 an 

 acre ought to be paid for forest land for commercial 

 cutting, but that tradition is outdated now by the fact 

 that the cost of most varieties of lumber has tripled in 

 the last ten years. 



"Only science and authority make prompt commercial 

 cutting possible in reforested areas. 



"Think, wood workers, what the newspapers are up 

 against in the matter of wood pulp, and ponder your case." 



[" IKE the fabled Johnny Appleseed, who 

 went from town to town, planting as he 

 went. Charles Lathrop Pack, president of 

 the American Forestry Association, is go- 

 ing up and down the country advocating the 

 planting of trees, hammering day and night 

 on the need of a national forestry policy. 

 The demand for Memorial Avenues, Roads 

 of Remembrance, Victory Boulevards, all 

 ulantcd with trees in honor of the men who 



gave their lives for their country, is meet- 

 ing with a remarkable response. Women's 

 clubs, churches, rotary clubs, kiwanis clubs, 

 patriotic societies and individuals are plant- 

 ing trees in rows, groups and groves. — 

 Pittsburgh Post. 



The American Forestry Association is 

 urging the planting of memorial trees and 

 creating "Roads of Remembrance," as a 



simple and effective way of bringing the 

 great principle of reforestation before the 

 public mind and keeping it there. To in- 

 terest the people in trees is the first step in 

 the process of establishing such automatic 

 recognition of the value and need of a 

 national forest policy as shall be effective 

 to save wide areas of country from climatic 

 calamity, create great wealth in timberland; 

 and avoid the present serious loss by 



