FORESTS AND GAME PRESERVATION 



113 



history, and sociology and economics. 

 It has much to do. We must have 

 the incentive to go to the forest, and 

 there we must have the inspiration of 

 the woods, natural and beautiful; of 

 the wild life as it once existed when the 

 forests were primeval. No artificial 

 forest this; no dollars or cents in it- 

 just nature at her best without the 

 regulations and improvements of man. 



We believe in scientific forestry. 

 There are many millions of acres of 

 denuded lands within our borders which 

 must be replanted. There are many 

 other millions of acres of forests which 

 must be cut, in order that the demands 

 of commerce may be met, and those 

 lands must be so lumbered that the 

 cover shall be preserved, that reproduc- 

 tion may be assured and that fire may 

 be controlled. 



We, as a nation must so develop our 

 lumber resources that we shall supply 

 our own wants and export if we find 

 a market. That is a business proposi- 

 tion and we believe in it as business men. 

 For those lands let us utilize the best 

 and latest practice in silviculture. Let 

 us develop the highest efficiency upon 

 them so as to secure the greatest yield, 

 as we would in a silk factorv or a steel 

 mill. 



But let us remember that such 

 tracts of lands are tree orchards, not 

 parks, and that they are operated for 

 commerce and not for inspiration. 



WE WANT REAL WILDERNESS PARKS 



Remember what I have said about 

 the old wilderness. Remember what I 

 have said about the sturdy national 

 character that wilderness built, and 

 then you will know why we want some 

 tracts of forest land to be natural in 

 both trees, scrub and wild life. Why 

 we want forests where birds and game 

 can live; where the trees grow to 

 maturity and die and fall; where the 

 moss on the rotted trunks, the maple 

 scrub, the poplar and the alder furnish 

 food to the deer and moose and beaver 

 and the decayed branch furnishes a 

 home and food to the woodpecker and 

 the chickadee. 



A real forest is as much more than a 

 collection of trees as a city is more than 



a collection of houses. The life of a 

 city is in its population, without which 

 it would be a mere empty skeleton. 

 But the teeming activities of a city, 

 with all their complex interrelations, 

 are no more intricate and wonderful 

 than the life of a natural forest with its 

 myriads of creatures large and small 

 deriving their life from that forest and 

 doing their part in its support and 

 maintenance. 



Take for example an eastern forest, 

 such as our old North woods. The 

 trees, though all important, are merely 

 the framework around which the com- 

 plex structure is built. 



Its foundation is in the deep moist 

 duff, rich with the accumulation of 

 ages of life and death and decay, and 

 from this foundation springs, not only 

 the trees, but the undergrowth which is 

 as much a part of the forest as the leaf 

 cover overhead. For here in this under- 

 growth live and move the myriad forms 

 of animal and bird life. The shrubbery 

 furnishes food for the deer and the 

 moose. The smaller growth sustains 

 the rabbits, mice and other mammals, 

 which in their turn are food for the 

 fox, the bobcat, the great horned owl 

 and the eagle. 



And these wild creatures not only 

 derive their livelihood from the forest 

 but play as well an important part in 

 its care and maintenance. The small 

 birds, the warblers, vireos, and chick- 

 adees with their incessant activities 

 are ridding the trees of worms and 

 caterpillars and other destructive in- 

 sects. The nuthatches and the creepers 

 are climbing up and down the trunks 

 picking eggs and larva from the crevices 

 of the bark. The hard working wood- 

 peckers are busily hunting out and 

 destroying borers that live under the 

 bark where man cannot find them, 

 while the great pileated wood-pecker, 

 with infinite pains, hews an opening 

 into the very heart of the trunk and 

 reaches the colonies of ants that have 

 honeycombed it with their galleries. 



By far the greater part of these birds 

 make their homes in the undergrowth 

 and when man clears this out should he 

 wonder why his trees are overrun with 

 insect pests? 



