530 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



November 



tunities for recreation and sport in the 

 mountains and among the few remain- 

 ing and accessible wildernesses are 

 among the things which we as a na- 

 tion greatly cherish and are justly 

 proud of. America would not be 

 America without them. As Dr. Ed- 

 ward Everett Hale said at the Ameri- 

 can Forest Congress last January : we 

 "want our children's children's chil- 

 dren to be able to sleep under such 

 trees." And it is true that the White 

 Mountain region is one of the three 

 or four regions in this country which 

 can be used for the purposes indicated 

 by a large portion of the population. 

 In the center of populous New Eng- 

 land, within a few hours by train of 

 New Jersey and all of eastern New 

 York, hardly any farther from New 

 York City than the Adirondacks and 

 much nearer to it than the Maine 

 woods, frequented by many who do 

 not hesitate to call themselves west- 

 erners this White Mountain region 

 is already a national playground in 

 fact. It is one of the nation's natural 

 parks, in precisely the same sense, 

 though not in the same degree, in 

 which Switzerland is a playground 

 and continental park for the whole of 

 Europe. Witness to the truth of this 

 to look no farther two things which 

 are often cited now not as evidence, 

 but simply as reasons: the first is an 

 estimate that the summer tourist leaves 

 more than $8,000,000 in the White 

 Mountains every year; the second is 

 a petition to the Governor of New 

 Hampshire to call a special session of 

 the legislature to save the existing for- 

 ests on the Presidential Range, which, 

 though obviously forlorn and hopeless, 

 and though circulated hurriedly at the 

 end of this year's season, recently went 

 to Concord with hundreds of tourists' 

 signatures attached. 



If the White Mountains are now a 

 national park and playground and 

 are this in fact, then there is really not 

 so much a question of creating some- 

 thing anew, as of adopting measures 

 to insure the perpetuation and indefi- 

 nite enjoyment of a blessing which al- 



ready exists. If the need exists there 

 can be no question about the desir- 

 ability of the measures except those 

 of economy and expediency. 



And the need does exist. Here 

 again time and experience are amply 

 verifying Parkman's words. The 

 White Mountains are not snow peaks 

 like the Alps. A great part of their 

 charm and their value does lie in the 

 forest cover on their sides, as does 

 that of the hills in the Black Forest 

 region in Germany, and although it 

 is in a measure true that the second 

 growth forest which comes up ans- 

 wers the purposes as well as forest 

 primeval, it is also indisputable that 

 unrestricted cutting and private own- 

 ership result in the complete destruc- 

 tion of the original forest as such, but 

 in the extermination of all forest 

 growth in situations and on exposures 

 where no second growth worthy even 

 of that more prosaic name will ever, 

 within predictable decades, appear. 

 Even where new woods immediately 

 "come in". to replace the old, the ex- 

 isting conditions lead to a temporary 

 destruction of the forest, to a dis- 

 turbance and an arrest, which under 

 public management would be recog- 

 nized as not more unnecessary than un- 

 desirable. Such, for instance, is now 

 the case with the famous Randolph 

 forest on the northern slopes of the 

 Presidential Range. If the very large 

 lumbering operations which have been 

 going on for the last two years con- 

 tinue this winter the whole tract, even 

 to the upper slopes, will be cut over. 

 Fire will be more than likely to fol- 

 low the axe. This forest which has 

 been' one of the finest spruce growths 

 in New England, standing in a beau- 

 tiful situation, and yielding an annual 

 crop of direct and indirect satisfac- 

 tions, enjoyments, and profits to tour- 

 ist, hotelman, railroad and mill owner, 

 no less considerable because not easily 

 expressed in dollars and cents, will 

 cease to exist for all purposes but those 

 of the most forlorn and uncertain sort 

 of timberland speculation. 



Not only is it further quite certain, 





