T/ITH U^TCLE SAI-/i' S rATURALIgTS . Friday, February 27, 19"1. 



Al'TITOUI'CIl.g^in ; A:id now for o\ir visits with Uncle Sam's ITaturali st s of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, CXir Wildsman tells us they are 

 ••jotting ready for spring;- now. At least, the foresters seem to be — — 

 IsnH that ri^nt, Mr. Wildsman? 



Yes, it won't be long now. Promptly as the snow goes off in the 

 scoring, the United States Forest Service, will go back to planting trees 

 on GOir.e of the burned-over sections of our national forests. 



Of course, tree planting is not Just a spring proposition. The 

 ForoGt Service began its annual planting operations last fall. At that 

 time, t:-at branch of our great Department of Agriculture had about 

 15,000,000 young trees on hand in its nurseries. 



Most of the fall planting was in the Lake States and in Idaho, 

 Some winter planting was done in the South. This spring planting will 

 bo begun again in the Ilonangahela national Forest in West Virginia, .and 

 njar Holsey in the ITcbraska ITation^J. Forest, and on the Pike I'Tational 

 Forest in Colorado, and in the St, Joe ITational Forest in Idaho, Plant- 

 ing will also be done again this spring on some of the Lake States national 

 forests, and probably on the Columbia ITational Forest in Washington. 



That planting on the Pike ITational Forest in Colorado is a good 

 example of Forest Service tree planting. The foresters tell me much of 

 the -orest around Pikes' Peak was badly burned over in a series of fires' 

 nearly 50 years ago. That was before the Pike National Forest was 

 created. Those big forest fires laid bare a wide territory. Sometimes 

 after fires, ITature tai:es hold and reseeds the land, and forests again 

 {jradually take possession. But, around Pikes' Peak there, that stretch 

 of burned over land was burned so badly that it has not reforested 

 itself. Planting was the only remedy. 



Event-ually, the government foresters say, we will probably get 

 good returns in timber production from the planting that is being done 

 there. But timber is not the main thing they have in mind right now. 

 In this particular case, the chief object of the planting is to Improve 

 the valuable watershed. Important cities are dependent upon this re- 

 forested land for their city water supply, 



Tliat is just a sairple of the Forest Service's work. From time 

 to time, it has talcen over lands that before it got control were 

 denuded by fires or cut-over or otherwise swept clear of timber. Of 

 course replanting all those burned and cut-over sections s\iitcd to re- 

 forested and needed for timber and watershed protection would be a 



