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WEST VIRGINIA FORESTRY PROBLEM. 

 By Prof. T. C. Atkeson. 



"What do we plant when we plant a tree? 

 We plant the houses for you and me ; 

 We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors; 

 We plant the studding, the lath, the doors ; 

 The beams and siding, all parts that be ; 

 We plant the house when we plant the tree." 



No state in this country has a more vital interest in forest prob- 

 lems and forest conservation than West Virginia and it is yearly 

 becoming more urgent that our public spirited citizens and our 

 law makers study the problem carefully and seriously with a Adew 

 of saving to the state what can yet be saved of our rapidly dis- 

 appearing forests. 



Fifteen or twenty years ago it was estimated that West Vir- 

 ginia had nine million acres of land in original forests, and only 

 a little further back an enthusiastic writer said, "There are in 

 some of the interior counties immense primeval forests that are 

 strangers to the woodsman's ax and the saw of the lumberman." 

 True as that Avas then it is far from 'being true now, and with 

 railroads building into every forest area the patch of primeval 

 forest that is a stranger to the woodsman's ax is rapidly growing 

 harder to find. After the ax and the saw have done their deadly 

 work, the biting flames, fed by the tree tops and mangled under- 

 growth, sweep over the hill-sides and leave a blackened trail of 

 dreary waste throughout large area where once the finest scenery 

 in the world charmed with its beauty and grandeur. 



Years ago the pioneers stripped the river and creek valleys of 

 their magnificent forests of most of the varieties of timber common 

 to this latitude — Such as several varieties of oak, wild cherry, 

 walnut, yellow poplar, pine, ash, maple, hickory, hemlock, spruce, 

 birch, beech, sycamore and many other varities, and rolled the 

 logs into the streams, made them into rails or burned them in 

 log heaps to make room for their primitive farming operations. 



The complete destruction of our forests is sure to result if our 

 present methods are continued, and there is probably no more ur- 

 gent question now confronting our people or our legislature than 



