The appalling waste of timber resources through excessive and reckless cutting, amounting to forest devastation, is deplorable, but we are helpless to prevent it. Since the bulk of woodlands are privately owned, and there are no effective laws limiting the cutting of timber with a view to conserving the supply, the only means of bringing about regulated cutting on private lands is through cooperation with the owners. This is being done in some of the states in a limited way, through educational methods, involving investigations, reports, demonstrations, and other means of bringing improved forestry practices to the attention of existing owners and enlisting their cooperation and support in forest conservation.
Forestry in the state, or in the nation, seems to progress no more rapidly than the timber disappears; in fact, the individual states do not take precaution to conserve their timber supplies until exhaustion is threatened. The damage has been largely done before the remedy is considered. We are today paying a tremendous toll for our lack of foresight in these matters. As a timber producing state becomes a timber importing state, (a condition existing in most of the eastern and middle states) we begin to pay a heavy toll in the loss of home industries dependent upon wood, and also in heavy freight charges on lumber that we must import from distant points to supply our needs. In many states, the expenditure of an amount for reforestation and fire protection equal to this freight bill on imported lumber would make the state self-supporting in a decade, instead of becoming worse off each year.
Marked progress has been made along the lines indicated, but few of the states have begun to measure up to their full responsibility in protecting their future timber supply.
CHAPTER XII
THE PLAYGROUNDS OF THE NATION
The public forests are steadily increasing in popularity as the playgrounds of the Nation. The woodlands offer splendid opportunities for camping, hunting, fishing and outdoor life.
Millions of motorists now spend their vacations in the government and state forests. Railroads and automobiles make the forests accessible to all. Thousands of miles of improved motor highways lead into the very heart of the hills. More than 5,500,000 people annually visit the National Forests. Of this number, some 2,500,000 are campers, fishermen and hunters.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A CAMPING GROUND IN A NATIONAL FOREST]
The forests provide cheap health insurance to all who will enjoy what they offer in sport and recreation. For example, over 1,000,000 vacationists visit Colorado"s forests each year. If each person spent but five days in the forests, this would mean a total of 5,000,000 days or 50,000,000 hours of rest and enjoyment. Recreation at the beaches and amus.e.m.e.nt parks costs at least fifty cents an hour. Applying that rate to the free fun which the people get out of the forests, in Colorado in one year the tourists, campers and fishermen gained $25,000,000 worth of pleasure from the forests.
The National and State Forests furnish summer homes for thousands of people who live in the neighboring cities and towns. Regular summer home sites are laid off in many of the forests. Usually these individual sites cover about one-quarter acre or less. They rent for $5 to $25 a year, depending on the location. A man can rent one of these camp grounds for a term of years. He can build a summer cottage or bungalow on it. There are no special rules about the size or cost of the houses. Uncle Sam requires only that the cottages be sightly and the surroundings be kept clean and sanitary. Many of the cabins are built for $150 to $300. Some of them are more permanent and cost from $3,000 to $5,000 or $10,000. In the Angeles National Forest in southern California, over sixteen hundred of these cottages are now in use and many more are being built.
Where there are dead or mature trees in the forest, near summer home sites, timber can be purchased at low prices for use in building cottages. Even the people of small means can build cabins in the forests and enjoy living in the mountains during the heat of the summer. These camps provide fine surroundings for the rompings and summer games of the children and young people.
In California a number of cities have set up munic.i.p.al camps in the National Forests. At very low costs, the city residents can spend their vacations at these camps. Tents and cottages are provided. Facilities for all kinds of games and sports furnish recreation. Each family may stay at the camp for two weeks. The expenses are so low for meals and tents that the munic.i.p.al camps furnish the best and cheapest vacation which the family of limited means can enjoy. These camps are very popular. Wherever they have been tried, they have been successful. There are twelve munic.i.p.al camps in California. They cost $150,000.
Fine automobile camps are maintained along many of the important National and State Forest highways for the use of tourists.
Concrete fireplaces, tables, benches and running water are provided at these wayside camping places. The tourists who carry their camp kits like to stop at these automobile camps. They meet many other tourists and exchange information about the best trails to follow and the condition of the roads. Sometimes, permanent cabins and shelters are provided for the use of the cross-country travelers. The only rules are that care be exercised in the use of fire and the camping sites be kept in clean and sanitary condition.
All the forest roads are posted with many signs asking the tourists to be careful in the use of matches, tobacco and camp fires, so as not to start destructive forest fires. In the Federal and State forests hundreds of man-caused fires occur annually, due to the neglect and carelessness of campers and tourists to put out their camp fires. A single match or a cigarette stub tossed from a pa.s.sing automobile may start a costly fire. During the season from May to October, the western forests usually are as dry as tinder. Rains are rare during that period. A fire once started runs riot unless efficient control measures are used at once.
Those interested in fishing and hunting usually can find plenty of chance to pursue their favorite sports in the National and State Forests. There is good fishing in the forest streams and lakes, as the rangers, working in cooperation with Federal and State hatcheries yearly restock important waters. Fishing and hunting in the National Forests are regulated by the fish and game laws of that state in which the forests are located. The killing of wild game is permitted during certain open seasons in most of the forest regions.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GOOD FORESTS MEAN GOOD HUNTING AND FISHING]
The eastern forests in the White Mountains, the Adirondacks, and the Appalachians, are not, for the most part, as well developed as recreation grounds as are the western vacation lands. However, more interest is being taken each year in the outdoor life features of the eastern forests, and ultimately they will be used on a large scale as summer camp grounds. Many hikers and campers now spend their annual vacations in these forests. Throughout the White Mountain forest of New Hampshire, regular trails for walking parties have been made. At frequent intervals simple camps for the use of travelers have been built by mountaineering clubs. This forest, located as it is near centres of large population is visited by a half-million tourists each season. The Pisgah National Forest of North Carolina is becoming a centre for automobile travel as it contains a fine macadam road. The Superior National Forest of Minnesota, which covers 1,250,000 acres and contains 150,000 acres of lakes, is becoming very popular. It is called "the land of ten thousand lakes." One can travel in a canoe through this forest for a month at a time without pa.s.sing over the same lake twice. Other popular national forests are the Angeles in southern California, the Pike and Colorado in Colorado, and the Oregon and Wenatchee--the Pacific Northwest. Visitors to these forests total more than 1,750,000 a year.
The western forests are also being used for winter sports. They furnish excellent conditions for snow-shoe trips, skiing and sledding. The people who have camps on government land use their places for week-end excursions during the snow season when the roads are pa.s.sable. The White Mountain National Forest is used more for winter sports than any other government woodland. At many of the towns of New Hampshire and Maine, huge carnivals are held each winter. Championship contests in skiing, snowshoeing, skating, ski jumping, tobogganing and ski-joring are held. Snow sport games are also annual events in the Routt, Leadville and Pike National Forests of Colorado. Cross country ski races and ski-joring contests are also held. In the Truckee National Forest of California, dog-team races over courses of 25 to 50 miles are held each winter.
About eighty per cent. of the 5,500,000 people who visit the National Forests are automobile tourists. The other twenty per cent. consists of sportsmen interested in hunting, fishing, canoeing, boating, mountain climbing, bathing, riding and hiking.
In the Pacific Coast States there are a number of mountain climbing clubs whose members compete with each other in making difficult ascents. The mountaineering clubs of Portland, Oregon, for example, stage an interesting contest each summer in climbing Mount Hood, one of the highest peaks in the country.
CHAPTER XIII
SOLVING OUR FORESTRY PROBLEMS
A system of forestry which will provide sufficient lumber for the needs of our country and keep our forest land productive must be built on the extension of our public forests. Our National Forests are, at present, the one bright feature of future lumbering. Their tree crops will never be cut faster than they can be grown. A balance between production and consumption will always be maintained. Our needs for more timber, the necessity for protecting the headwaters of streams, the demands for saving wild life, and the playground possibilities of our forests justify their extension. Approximately eighty per cent of the American forests are now privately owned. The chances are that most of these wooded tracts will always remain in the hands of private owners. It is important that the production of these forests be kept up without injuring their future value. We must prepare for the lumber demands of many years from now.
Some method must be worked out of harnessing our idle forest lands and putting them to work growing timber. Any regulations that are imposed on the private owners of woodlands must be reasonable. Changes in our present methods of taxing timberlands must be made to encourage reforestation. The public must aid the private individuals in fighting forest fires, the greatest menace that modern forestry has to face. A national policy is needed which will permit the private owner to grow trees which will give him fair and reasonable profit when sold.
The farmers of this country use about one-half of all the lumber consumed annually. They own approximately 191,000,000 acres of timber in their farm woodlots. If farmers would devote a little time and labor to the permanent upkeep and improvement of their timber, they would aid in decreasing the danger of a future lumber famine. If they would but keep track of the acreage production of their woodlands as closely as they do of their corn and wheat crops, American forestry would benefit greatly.
Between 1908 and 1913, the U.S. Forest Service established two forest experiment stations in California and one each in Washington, Idaho, Colorado, and Arizona. They devote the same degree of science and skill to the solution of tree growing and lumbering problems as the agricultural experiment stations give to questions of farm and crop management. Despite the fact that these forestry stations did fine work for the sections that they served, recently a number of them had to close, due to lack of funds. Congress does not yet realize the importance of this work.
More forest experiment stations are needed throughout the country. Such problems as what kinds of trees are best to grow, must be solved. Of the 495 species of trees in this country, 125 are important commercially. They all differ in their histories, characteristics and requirements. Research and study should be made of these trees in the sections where they grow best. Our knowledge regarding tree planting and the peculiarities of the different species is, as yet, very meagre. We must discover the best methods of cutting trees and of disposing of the slash. We must investigate rates of growth, yields and other problems of forest management. We must study the effect of climate on forest fires. We must continue experiments in order to develop better systems of fire protection.
We need more forest experiment stations to promote the production of more timber. Twenty of our leading industries utilize lumber as their most important raw material. Fifty-five different industries use specialized grades and quality of lumber in the manufacture of many products. This use of lumber includes general mill work and planing mill products, such as building crates and boxes, vehicles, railroad cars, furniture, agricultural implements and wooden ware.
Our manufacturers make and use more than two hundred and seventy-five different kinds of paper, including newsprint, boxboard, building papers, book papers and many kinds of specialty papers. The forest experiment stations would help solve the practical problems of these many industries. They could work out methods by which to maintain our forests and still turn out the thirty-five to forty billion board feet of lumber used each year. They are needed to determine methods of increasing our annual cut for pulp and paper. They are necessary so that we can increase our annual output of poles, pilings, cooperage and veneer.
A forest experiment station is needed in the southern pine belt.
The large pine forests of Dixieland have been shaved down from 130,000,000 acres to 23,500,000 acres. In that region there are more than 30,000,000 acres of waste forest lands which should be reclaimed and devoted to the growing of trees. Eastern and middle western manufacturing and lumbering centres are interested in the restoring of the southern pine forests. During the last score of years, they have used two-thirds of the annual output of those forests. In another ten to fifteen years home demand will use most of the pine cut in the South. The East and Middle West will then have to rely mostly on the Pacific Coast forests for their pine lumber.
The Lake States need a forest experiment station to work out methods by which the white pine, hemlock, spruce, beech, birch and maple forests of that section can be renewed. The Lake States are now producing only one-ninth as much white pine as they were thirty years ago. These states now cut only 3,500,000,000 feet of all kinds of lumber annually. Their output is growing smaller each year. Wisconsin led the United States in lumber production in 1900. Now she cuts less than the second-growth yield of Maine.
Michigan, which led in lumber production before Wisconsin, now harvests a crop of white pine that is 50 per cent. smaller than that of Ma.s.sachusetts. Experts believe that a forest experiment station in the Lake States would stimulate production so that enough lumber could be produced to satisfy the local demands.
Not least in importance among the forest regions requiring an experiment station are the New England States and northern and eastern New York. In that section there are approximately 25,000,000 acres of forest lands. Five and one-half million acres consist of waste and idle land. Eight million acres grow nothing but fuel-wood. The rest of the timber tracts are not producing anywhere near their capacity. New England produces 30 per cent.
and New York 50 per cent. of our newsprint. Maine is the leading state in pulp production. New England imports 50 per cent. of her lumber, while New York cuts less than one-half the timber she annually consumes.
Another experiment station should be provided to study the forestry problems of Pennsylvania, southern and western New York, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey and Delaware. At one time this region was the most important lumber centre of the United States.
Pennsylvania spends $100,000,000 a year in importing lumber which should be grown at home. The denuded and waste lands at the headwaters of the Allegheny River now extend over one-half million acres. New Jersey is using more than twenty times as much lumber as is produced in the state. Ohio is a centre for wood manufacturing industries, yet her timber-producing possibilities are neglected, as are those of other states needing wood for similar purposes.
European nations have spent large sums of money in investigating forestry problems to make timber producing economically feasible, and have found that it paid. In this country, our forest experiment stations will have to deal with a timbered area twice that of all Europe, exclusive of Russia. That is why we shall need many of these stations to help solve the many questions of national welfare which are so dependent upon our forests.
CHAPTER XIV
WHY THE UNITED STATES SHOULD PRACTICE FORESTRY
Of late years the demand for lumber by the world trade has been very great. Most of the countries which have extensive forests are taking steps to protect their supplies. They limit cutting and restrict exports of timber. Both New Zealand and Switzerland have pa.s.sed laws of this kind. Sweden exports much lumber, but by law forbids the cutting of timber in excess of the annual growth.
Norway regulates private cutting. England is planning to plant 1,770,000 acres of new forest reserve. This body of timber when ready for cutting, would be sufficient to supply her home needs in time of emergency for at least three years. France is enlarging her forest nurseries and protecting her timber in every possible way. Even Russia, a country with huge forest tracts, is beginning to practice conservation. Russia now requires that all timber cut under concession shall be replaced by plantings of trees.
For many years, the United States and China were the greatest wasters of forest resources under the sun. Now this country has begun to practice scientific forestry on a large scale so that China now has the worst-managed forests in the world. j.a.pan, on the other hand, handles her forests efficiently and has established a national forestry school. Austria, Norway, Sweden and Italy have devoted much time, labor and money to the development of practical systems of forestry. Turkey, Greece, Spain and Portugal, all follow sane and sensible forestry practices. Even Russia takes care of her national timberlands and annually draws enormous incomes from their maintenance. France and Germany both have highly successful forestry systems.
Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand are using their forests in a practical manner and saving sufficient supplies of wood for posterity.
History tells us that the forests first were protected as the homes of wild game. Little attention was paid to the trees in those days. The forests were places to hunt and abodes devoted to wild animals. Scientific forestry was first studied and practised widely in the nineteenth century. Its development and expansion have been rapid. Germany still leads as one of the most prominent countries that practices efficient forestry. German forests are now said to be worth more than $5,000,000,000. France has over 2,750,000 acres of fine publicly owned forests, in addition to private forests, which yield a net income of more than $2 an acre a year to the government. The French have led in extending reforestation on denuded mountain sides. British India has well-managed forests which cover over 200,000 square miles of area. These timberlands return a net income of from $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 a year. India now protects more than 35,000 square miles of forest against fire at an annual cost of less than half a cent an acre.
Forest experts say that the United States, which produces more than one-half of all the sawed timber in the world, should pay more attention to the export lumber business. Such trade must be built up on the basis of a permanent supply of timber. This means the practice of careful conservation and the replacement of forests that have been destroyed. We can not export timber from such meagre reserves as the pine forests of the South, which will not supply even the domestic needs of the region for much more than ten or fifteen years longer. Many of our timber men desire to develop extensive export trade. Our sawmills are large enough and numerous enough to cut much more timber annually than we need in this country. However, the danger is that we shall only abuse our forests the more and further deplete the timber reserves of future generations as a result of extensive export trade. If such trade is developed on a large scale, a conservative, practical national forestry policy must be worked out, endorsed and lived up to by every producing exporter.
The U.S. Forest Service reports that before the world war, we were exporting annually 3,000,000,000 board feet of lumber and sawlogs, not including ties, staves and similar material. This material consisted of Southern yellow pine, Douglas fir, white oak, redwood, white pine, yellow poplar, cypress, walnut, hickory, ash, ba.s.swood and similar kinds of wood. The exports were made up of 79 per cent. softwoods and 21 per cent.
hardwoods. The export trade consumed about 8-1/2 per cent. of our annual lumber cut. Southern yellow pine was the most popular timber shipped abroad. One-half of the total export was of this material.