968 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Photo by P. L. Butlrick. 



UTILIZATION OI-" CHESTNUT 



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This Southern Appalachian farmhouse is built entirely of chestnut. Everything except the boards 

 over the windows and at the gables is hand hewn side boards, rafters, shingles and floor boards. 

 The rail fences in the background are built of chestnut posts and rails. Even the poles supporting 

 the haycock are chestnut. All the material was cut from the forest growing close by. 



mercial species in that section, for no way has been found 

 to definitely check its ravages, although the National Gov- 

 ernment and some of the States have spent large sums in 

 the attempt. 



So the forester is recommending the removal of all 

 chestnut of commercial value in the region of blight in- 

 festation in order that it may be marketed before it is 

 destroyed, for dead chestnut deteriorates rapidly in value. 

 At the same time the removal of much of the chestnut 

 may help to check the rapid spread of the disease. 



The other enemies of the chestnut have confined their 

 attacks largely to the southern portion of its range. They 

 have been at work much longer than the blight and have 

 in the aggregate caused a much greater damage, but their 

 ravages spread less rapidly, and have not been as fully 

 discussed or studied. In fact, there is much that we do 

 not know about them. There seems to be a combination 

 of insects, fungous diseases and fire, or perhaps some- 

 thing more deep seated, such as a widespread but obscure 

 soil or climatic change, of which the others are but mani- 

 festations or subordinate causes, destroying the chestnut 

 in the South. The trees generally die in midsummer and, 

 unlike blight-killed trees, seldom sprout from the stump 

 after the trunk is killed. Certain insects, notably the 

 two-lined chestnut borer (Agrilus bilincatits), are almost 

 always found under the bark of the dead or dying trees, 

 but whether as cause or efifect has sometimes been a 

 matter of dispute. 



Formerly chestnut grew pretty well over the entire 

 South, east of the Mississippi River and north of Florida. 

 But about seventy-five years ago it began mysteriously to 

 die out throughout the lowland portions of the region and 

 today it is a disappearing straggler of no commercial im- 

 jjortance everywhere except in the mountains, its former 

 almndance being attested by old stumps, rotting logs, 

 weathered fence rails, and the tales of the old inhabitants. 

 Even in its Appalachian stronghold, where it reaches its 



greatest development and abun- 

 dance, this strange dying ofT is 

 going on in a few sections. At 

 this time it is particularly active 

 along the lower slope of the 

 eastern side of the Blue Ridge, 

 where whole mountain-sides are 

 covered with gaunt white trunks 

 of trees killed within the last 

 few years. 



Thirty years or less at the 

 present rate of cutting will ex- 

 haust the supply of virgin chest- 

 nut timber in the Southern 

 Appalachians, and outside of 

 that region there is little to fall 

 back upon save the second 

 growth from such scattered 

 woodlots as have escaped de- 

 struction. If the blight and the 

 other agents of destruction con- 

 tinue their devastation, it looks 

 as though within our lifetime the chestnut will have to 

 be added to that melancholy list of American plants and 

 animals, like the buffalo and the black walnut tree, of 

 which we say "formerly common, now rare." 



ALASKA'S FIRE LOSSES 



HIEF FORESTER H. S. GRAVES, on his re- 

 turn to Seattle from Alaska recently, was 

 quoted by a newspaper as saying that enor- 

 mous damage has been done in Alaskan forests by fire. 

 Mr. Graves said : "The great interior river systems were 

 originally wooded. I would estimate that in the last fif- 

 teen years there have been burned not less than a mil- 

 lion acres a year. 



"This summer, which was unusually dry, the total loss 

 is one or two times the average. Yet the government 

 is not taking a single step to protect these forests. 



"In August I passed through more than 100 miles of 

 forest burning or recently burned, along the Valdez- 

 F'airbanks trail. Many culverts, bridges, corduroy and 

 telephone poles had been destroyed. 



"The actual damage to the Valdez trail itself is as 

 much as it would have cost to have prevented fires." 



iVtIi 



WOOD PULP IN ARGENTINA 



THE result of experiments carried out by a 

 Swedish paper expert, it has been ascertained 

 that Argentina produces a tree in abundance 

 which provides excellent raw material, better even in 

 C|uality than that usually employed in making paper pulp 

 in both Europe and the United States. This tree is the 

 Araucaria imbricata, a picture of which may be seen in 

 American Forestry for August, page 850, 



