AMERICAN FORESTRY 



An Old Style Saw Mill. 



HEAVY HARDWOOD LO IS WERE CUT INTO BOARDS BY MAN POWER SOMEWHAT IN THE SAME WAY THE WORK 

 IS DONE IN SOME DISTRICTS OF CHINA TO THIS DAY. 



peculiar appearance of many pine trees 

 from which all of the branches, except 

 a l' the top, had been carefully cut. 



I found that the individual trees were 

 all "owned" but that the owners were 

 not allowed to fell them until they had 

 attained a certain minimum size, al- 

 though they might meanwhile cut the 

 lo\v<r branches for firewood. Noting 

 the excellent reproduction which was 

 ; on some of the hillsides I 

 ind ii] ion inquiry that the young 

 re being protected from grass 



tunately similar wisdom has 



displayed by the inhabitants 



n in the archipelago 



ruction has been 



practiced, with little interference, from 



th< Spanish discovery until 



Ml. 



that the sparse 



' the i could at the 



aratively little im- 



pr< Unfor- 



not the The 



al r i; tropical 



grasses commonly known collectively 

 as cogon, the wind-driven seeds of which 

 fly for long distances and promptly 

 germinate in land cleared for agricul- 

 tural purposes. It has been diffcult 

 successfully to combat them with such 

 machinery and implements as have here- 

 tofore been available, and for untold 

 centuries there has prevailed the custom 

 of obtaining land for agriculture by 

 felling and burning the forest trees. 

 Newly cleared lands have been aban- 

 doned as soon as cogon made its appear- 

 ance. This pest is more than capable 

 of holding its own against all comers. 

 Its wide-spreading and sharply pointed 

 roots not only make the soil acid but bore 

 through any moderately soft obstacles 

 which they encounter. Furthermore, 

 cogon burns readily and fiercely during 

 the dry season, destroying any young 

 trees which may have established them- 

 selves, with the result that a deforested 

 area which becomes a cogondl remains a 

 cogondl unless man intervenes. 



He is now intervening in the Philip- 

 pines with legislation forbidding the 



