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Vol. XVI 



FEBRUARY, igio 



No. 2 



THE APPALACHIAN FORESTS 



By HON. CURTIS GUILD, JR. 



The President's Address at the Twenty '-ninth Annual Meeting 

 of the American Forestry Association 



IN VIEW of the pending Congres- 

 sional investigation in regard to the 

 conservation of national resources, 

 comment, eulogy or censure of the past 

 would be not only in bad taste, but 

 useless. It is extremely gratifying to 

 note that all the officials connected with 

 forestry in the National administration, 

 in spite of all differences, agree on the 

 urgent need of the immediate passage 

 by Congress of remedial legislation in 

 the cause of forestry and of conserva- 

 tion. 



We are extremely fortunate in hav- 

 ing at the head of forestry work in the 

 United States a gentleman who is not 

 merely earnest, energetic, and unselfish, 

 but an acknowledged expert of interna- 

 tional reputation on the subject of for- 

 estry. We cannot go far wrong in our 

 course, while the chief forester is Prof. 

 H. S. Graves, once of- Yale, but now 

 of the United States. 



The advisability of protection for our 

 forests is so universally accepted as to 

 need no defense. I shall, therefore, de- 

 vote myself to one specific act that is 

 needed now, an act advocated on the 

 broadest grounds of general good and 

 openly opposed only on grounds of a 

 most peculiar character as far as super- 

 ficial developments have made them 

 manifest. 



We have every reason for gratitude 

 to President Taft for his support of 

 our appeal for Appalachian forest re- 

 serves. This association urges the 

 acquisition of Appalachian forest re- 

 serves not merely as a measure of cruelly 

 needed help for water supply and tlie 

 public health, but as a matter of com- 

 mon justice. 



Whether the money spent to pre- 

 serve the forests on the water-sheds of 

 the Appalachians comes as an appro- 

 priation from the National Treasury or 

 from the revenues of the existing for- 

 est reserves in the western states, the 

 East and South have a right to ask the 

 same attention to their development at 

 the hands of the National Government 

 as has been already given to the West 

 and with universal approval. 



The opponents of the creation of 

 Appalachian forest reserves at the 

 hands of the General Government have 

 given three specific reasons for their 

 attitude. They claim : 



i. Forest reserves do not promote 

 regular stream-flow. Their creation, 

 therefore, would be a useless expense. 



The only authority for this mis- 

 taken statement is the opinion of an 

 officer of the United States Army whose 

 profession identifies him with military 

 rather than with civil engineering. He 



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