HARDWOOD FORESTS OF SOUTHERN SOUTH 



AMERICA 



By H. G. CUTLER 



N" ATIONS are slower to learn by 

 experience than even individ- 

 uals. Perhaps because small 

 bodies move more rapidly than 

 the massive ones. But isn't it a fact, 

 throwing the cause aside ? 



If I shall have the privilege in the 

 great hereafter of viewing the progress 

 of mundane affairs, I know that I _shall 

 be curious to know how long it will be 

 before the nations of the earth will appre- 

 ciate the blessings which nature has 

 showered upon them, and not, in the 

 mere gluttony of the good things of 

 life, scatter them to the winds with wan- 

 ton wickedness. In spite of the warn- 

 ings which have come to the older 

 sinners of the earth, such as Germany, 

 France, the United States and others 

 who have seen the error of their ways, 

 Argentina and Paraguay, which embrace 

 the cream of the hardwood forests of 

 southern South America, are allowing 

 them to melt away before the onslaught 

 of land, railway and manufacturing 

 corporations. 



The strong soil has presented the 

 southern republics with vast forests of 

 quebracho, cypress, oak, cedar and 

 lignum vitae, as well as those varieties 

 which are her own special offspring 

 coigue, alerce and manu and, in repay- 

 ment of this generosity, the governments 

 of men have allowed them to be ravished 

 at will, for the payment of paltry sums 

 and in blind forgetfulness of the future. 

 But they say, "Sufficient unto the day 

 is the evil thereof. Why worry? We 

 need the money to live on. The future 

 has always taken care of itself in some 

 way." 



True. Nature has always been very 

 good to mankind, in view of how man- 

 kind has treated nature. When the 

 forests commenced to thin out, Coal 

 began to yield his treasures. Coal gets 

 to be too cumbersome to be carried into 

 every nook of the universe, and is 

 altogether absent in such great lands 



248 



AN INDIAN OF THE CHACO HARDWOOD FORESTS. 



as Argentina, and petroleum flows from 

 the bowels of the earth into the furnaces 

 of war ships, factories and residences. 

 Nature has been a thoughtful, tender 

 mother to careless, ungrateful children. 

 Is it not time that the new, undeveloped 

 nations show their gratitude to her by- 

 refusing, from the first, to waste their 

 lives in riotous living? 



Along this line is the following from 

 a publication issued from Buenos Aires, 

 the splendid capital of Argentina and 

 financial center of the great companies 

 which are especially exploiting the vast 

 forests of quebracho in the northern 

 and northeastern sections of the repub- 

 lic: "Attention has been repeatedly 

 called to the danger of the extinction 

 of the quebracho, as little or no check 

 has been placed on the reckless methods 

 of forest exploitation in vogue for many 

 years past. If these are still permitted, 

 according to a very high Argentine 



