62 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



February 



Wood substitutes are deceptive. In 

 Germany, a hundred years ago, coal 

 began to take the place of wood, but 

 the consumption of wood in that coun : 

 try has increased in the same ratio 

 as the consumption of coal. From a 

 superficial view point, one might im- 

 agine that the iron ship would be a 

 wood saver. In fact, however, more 

 wood goes into shipbuilding to-day 

 than ever before ; for all ships require 

 some wood, and more ships are now 

 built than in any former year. The 

 metal used at the top of the mine 

 shaft is as nothing compared with the 

 quantities of wood used below. Steel 

 sky-scrapers are to-day the vogue; 

 but more wood is used in the construc- 

 tion of houses than ever before. The 

 old wooden paving block has gone, 

 but another is taking its place, which, 

 it is claimed, is superior to any other 

 form of paving. 



And so on to the end of the chap- 

 ter. Optimism may be a good thing ; 

 but the optimism that "indulges in the 

 illusions of hope and listens to the 

 song of the siren," while hastening to- 

 ward peril, instead of bravely meet- 

 ing the situation and substituting se- 

 curity for danger, is a public menace. 

 Of such "optimism" America has had 

 an overdose. The time for intelligent, 

 deliberate and vigorous action is at 

 hand. 



The 



Pressing 



Need 



Before the American 

 Forestry Association lies 

 a work than which, 

 perhaps-, none more stupendous ever 

 faced a voluntary organization. It is 

 nothing less than the arousing of 

 eighty million people to a problem 

 whose solution is vital to their wejl- 

 being, showing them the r emedy and 

 leading them to apply it. 



Look at such facts as, in con- 

 densed form, are brought together in 

 the letter to our members, published in 

 this issue. We have the President 

 of the United States warning the peo- 

 ple of the progressive and rapid de- 

 struction of the very sources of their 

 physical lives the raw materials 

 from which must be provided, in large 



part, their food, shelter, and means of 

 transportation. We have him an- 

 nouncing this as the greatest issue be- 

 fore the American people, and con- 

 vening an assembly of notables to dis- 

 cuss with him the problem. 



We have the United States For- 

 ester declaring that, under present 

 policies of use and waste, our timber 

 supply will probably not last more 

 than from one-fifth to one-third of a 

 century a period which, in the life 

 of a Nation, is but the infinitesimal 

 fraction of the diameter of a hair ; 

 and indicating the calamitous results 

 which inevitably follow in the train 

 of forest destruction. 



We have the Director of the Re- 

 clamation Service pointing to the vast 

 and beneficent work now in progress 

 under Government auspices in the way 

 of redeeming the desert and provid- 

 ing homes for the people ; but aver- 

 ring, at the same time, that the con- 

 tinuance and success of this work are 

 absolutely dependent upon the reten- 

 tion of forests upon the mountain 

 sides, which, in turn, is dependent 

 upon National action. 



\Ve have a representative of the 

 Waterways Commission and Bureau 

 of Soils asserting that we are permit- 

 ting the sweeping each year into the 

 sea of enough soil to fertilize our 

 whole Atlantic coast area as far west 

 as Ohio and as far south as Georgia, 

 the annual value of this loss being at 

 least one billion dollars, and constitut- 

 ing the heaviest tax upon the Amer- 

 ican fanner. Such loss, furthermore, 

 is practically permanent, for the pro- 

 cess of soil formation requires not 

 years or decades, but centuries and 

 even ages. And he adds that this 

 "soil wash and river ravage are large- 

 ly to be traced to the absence of for- 

 ests upon slopes in which rivers rise." 



In the case of our inland waters 

 we have another billion dollars an- 

 nually going to waste in the form of 

 unutilized power, and an annual dam- 

 age, in addition, of one hundred mil- 

 lion dollars from floods. And here 

 again forest conservation is essential 

 to the solution of the problem. 



