148 



R KOREA TION. 



preserved and perpetuated. We may even 

 safely affirm that with proper care the val- 

 uable timber may be cut periodically and 

 the forest become more flourishing than in 

 its virgin state; because the removal of 

 worthless and stunted trees, while cutting 

 the most valuable ones, gives the young 

 and thrifty timber a chance to develop more 

 rapidly. 



Scientific lumbering means the conserva- 

 tion of forest energy; and while it arro- 

 gates to itself the right to take a larger part 

 of the most merchantable product, it pre- 

 pares the way for a duplication of that 

 product. It leaves some of the large coni- 

 fers, in a pine or spruce forest, to seed the 

 ground anew; it takes care that in felling 

 timber the young growth is not crushed or 

 injured; it uses the greatest care to prevent 

 forest fires; it takes account of the various 

 conditions under which different species 

 flourish best; and it does not overlook the 

 fact that species like the maple, birch and 

 beech, which, generally speaking, are not 

 now marketable, may in the near future 

 possess a high value and yield rich returns. 

 The proper management of timber lands is 

 not, therefore, a mere matter of sentiment; 

 it is a question of dollars and cents as 

 well. 



The relation of the forests to the water 

 supply is too well known to need much 

 comment. The razing of great tracts of 

 timber, which like huge sponges absorb and 

 hold the water, feeding it out slowly and 

 equalizing the flow of the streams, dries 

 up the forest flow and allows the melting 

 snows to rush off quickly in the spring. 

 The results are early freshets and drought 

 and dry watercourses later. The preserva- 

 tion of the woodlands, therefore, means 

 much, not only to the hunter, the angler, 

 and the lover of nature, but also to the 

 mill-owner and the householder. 



The destruction of trees is not always 

 confined to the lumberman. This is, in a 

 sense, an age of extermination, and woe to 

 anything that stands in the way of our 

 much-vaunted progress or which appeals to 

 our cupidity. Two or 3 years ago the mam 

 street of the city of Hudson, New York, 

 was lined on either side with noble elms 

 that were a joy to the eye. They lent com- 

 fort to the citizens and dignity to the town. 

 They were a patrimony of which the heirs 

 might well be proud and in the preserva- 

 tion of which their self-interest and love of 

 the beautiful were both involved. But this 

 is the age of progress! and so it happened 

 that a hungry trolley company and a Celtic 

 city council decreed that the street should 

 be widened and that the trees must come 

 down! They did come down, and the once 

 beautiful street now looks like a whited 

 sepulchre. I don't know what happened to 

 the men who wrought this ruin, but I know 



what should have happened to them: they 

 should have been hung to the nearest elm 

 tree and buried underneath the trolley 

 tracks in that very street. There is a Span- 

 ish proverb to the effect that he who sets 

 out a tree where none grew before is wor- 

 thy of all respect. What, then, shall we 

 say of those who destroy trees and leave 

 none in their place! 



The little book I have mentioned is 

 handsomely illustrated and is published by 

 the New York Critic Company. It is full 

 of suggestion and information alike to the 

 lumberman and the layman, and the sub- 

 ject with which it deals is of such vital im- 

 portance that I wish every reader of Rec- 

 reation might include it with his text 

 books. Lumbering has been and is being 

 carried on with so reckless a disregard for 

 the future that every thoughtful man must 

 be apprehensive of the prospective result. 

 The short-sightedness of the present system 

 is so manifest that the practical efforts of 

 such men as Dr. Webb and his associate 

 cannot fail to bear good fruit. Every man 

 who loves the song of the wind in the pines 

 and the sight of the spruce spires against 

 the sky; who sees in the rugged oak, the 

 graceful elm and the maple in its autumn 

 glory something more than mere boards 

 and beams, should himself become a for- 

 ester to the extent of lending his voice and 

 his vote to the good work of forest pres- 

 ervation. 



DESTRUCTION OF TREES BY INSECTS. 



As long as forest fires and the indis- 

 criminate cutting by the lumberman play 

 havoc with our forest resources we may 

 perhaps look on the feeble attempts of in- 

 sects to assist them with complacency, for, 

 comparatively speaking, their damage is 

 but small. Yet within the last 10 years the 

 state of Massachusetts has paid out at the 

 rate of one hundred thousand to two hun- 

 dred thousand dollars a year to cope with 

 an insect pest, imported from Europe, 

 which has not confined itself to ravaging 

 the fruit trees as it does in its native home, 

 but has gone into the woods and eats 

 everything that comes before it, or rather 

 that it can reach. There is, indeed, a sep- 

 arate commission, appointed by the state, 

 charged with reducing the damage or ex- 

 terminating the pest, called the Gypsy 

 Moth Commission, which publishes also 

 elaborate reports from year to year, full of 

 interesting observations. 



There are 2 practical questions that call 

 for consideration in this connection. What 

 is the damage that insects do? And what 

 are the means of combating them? 



There is a big volume by A. S. Packard, 

 published by the United States Entomolo- 

 gical Commission, on the insects injurious 

 to forest and shade trees, which details the 



