FORESTS
Aside from the soil itself, which supports all life, there is no other
resource so important to man as the forests, with their many uses
covering so wide a range.
The beauty and restfulness of a forest, the grace and dignity of single
trees, the shade for man and animals, the shelter from storms--all these
things appeal to our love for the beautiful, and touch our higher
nature. The person who loves trees is a better person than the one who
does not. As the poet expresses it:
"Ah, bare must be the shadeless ways, and bleak the path must be,
Of him, who, having open eyes, has never learned do see,
And so has never learned to love the beauty of a tree.
"Who loves a tree, he loves the life that springs in star and clod,
He loves the love that gilds the clouds, and greens the April sod,
He loves the wide Beneficence; his soul takes hold on God."
Trees have played an important part in the history of our country: The
"Charter Oak," in the hollow of which the original charter of
Connecticut remained hidden from the agents of the king; "Eliot's Oak,"
under which the gospel was first preached to the Indians; the
wide-spreading elm under which William Penn signed his treaty of peace
with the Indians.
But no tree has held so dear a place in the hearts of the people, or
been so watchfully cared for as the old "Washington Elm" still standing
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Under it Washington took command of the
continental army. It is visited every year by hundreds of persons, who
stand with uncovered heads beneath its spreading branches. Many years
ago it was struck by lightning and the upper part torn off, but all the
broken edges have been sealed with pitch to stop decay. It has been
covered with fine wire netting to prevent the bark being chipped off by
relic hunters. It is carefully guarded from damage by insects, and the
boughs are stayed by strong wires.
And so we might name many instances of trees that are loved and cared
for on account of their beauty, stateliness or some event connected with
them, but it is the usefulness of trees that we shall mention in this
chapter.
In the larger use of forests is included their effect on climate and
rainfall. It is generally believed that clouds, passing over the damp,
cool air that rises from a forest, are more likely to be condensed into
rain, and so we can establish the general rule that the country which is
well wooded will probably have a larger rainfall than the one which has
few trees.
Twenty-five years ago Kansas was a prairie state with few trees, and the
semi-arid plains extended half-way across the state, but thousands of
acres of trees have been planted, and crops have been cultivated, and
the more forests and crops the farmer plants the more rain comes to
water them. The great droughts which used to ruin their crops year after
year no longer disturb them. The hot winds which could undo a whole
season's hard work in a day are seldom heard of now. Kansas is no longer
in the semi-arid region. It is one of the most productive states in the
Union, and this has come, not by dry-farming, but by the cultivation of
the soil and by the planting of trees.
Though rainfall increases, destructive floods become fewer, for the
humus and the leaves on the ground in the forests hold the water as in
a vast sponge, and, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, they keep
the waters in check and distribute the rainfall gently and evenly on the
lands below. They thus prevent erosion of the hillsides and balance the
water supply of rivers.
Trees supply us with food and medicine, and greatest of all their direct
uses, they furnish lumber for all kinds of manufacturing.
We can not think of life without the comforts and conveniences that we
get from wood; but interior China affords a striking example of what it
means for a nation to have a very small supply. There is no wood for
manufacturing and the natives search the hillsides for even the tiniest
shrubs to burn and even for grass scratched from the soil. Once this
part of China was a great forest region, but century by century the
forests have been used, not rapidly, as in this country, for China is
not a great industrial nation, but surely, until there is hardly a twig
left.
China is not the only nation that has suffered in this way. Many of the
ancient peoples have entirely passed away; and the destruction of their
forests, as we have seen in the previous chapter, was the first cause
leading to their extinction.
Denmark was originally almost covered with forests. These were cut down
for fuel, for lumber, and to make way for agriculture. For a long time
there was no attempt to restore them, and now a large area, once
productive, has become a sandy desert. In the same way, large parts of
Austria and Italy have become valueless because the growing forests were
cut down.
In France the forests at the head-waters of the Rhone and the Seine were
cut down and fierce floods began to pour down the valleys each year,
bringing destruction to property and crops all along their way. But
France has long ago learned the lesson of forestry, and as soon as the
danger was seen, the mountain sides were replanted with trees, and since
then conditions have been gradually changing for the better.
France has had another experience in forestry that has taught her what
can be done to save her waste lands. Near the coast were great
sand-dunes. The winds drove them each year farther inland, and the sand
was gradually driving out the vineyards and farm crops. In 1793 the
planting of forests on these dunes was begun. Of 350,000 acres, 275,000
have been planted in valuable pine forests. More than half of these
belong to private owners and there is no record of their value, but the
portion belonging to the government has yielded a large income above all
expenses, and is worth $10,000,000 as land; and this was not only
valueless but was a menace to the surrounding country. In the interior
of France a sandy marsh covering 2,000,000 acres has been changed into a
profitable forest valued at $100,000,000.
A hundred years ago all the eastern part of the United States and the
Rocky Mountains and the Pacific coast region were covered with thick
forests hundreds and hundreds of miles in extent. Evergreens--the pines,
hemlocks, cedars and spruces--grew near the coast in great abundance,
while farther inland were found the most magnificent hardwood forests in
the world.
Unfortunately, the first needs of the early settlers required them to
cut down these mighty forests. The soil, which was very fertile, could
not, of course, be used for farming purposes until the land was cleared,
and so this was the first necessity.
The wood was used to build the cabins, to make the rude furniture, the
wagons and ox-carts, and for fuel, but this disposed of only a small
amount of the wood that came from the clearing of a farm. No man could
give it to his neighbor when all had more than they could use, and there
was no market for its sale. The trees were burned in large quantities to
clear the land for the planting of crops.
Wood was of the greatest value to the first settlers, but it was also
the greatest hindrance to their making homes, so they took no care
whatever of what they could not use. It was burned or left on the
ground to decay. As towns sprang up, there began to be a demand for
lumber for houses, for furniture, for vehicles and for fuel from those
who had no trees of their own. This made a market for the best grades of
lumber at a low price, but almost every farmer would give away trees of
the best hardwood to any person who would cut and haul them away.
Conditions have changed very slowly, but very surely. In every state, in
every county and in every township there has been a steady clearing of
the land as it fills with new home-makers. At the same time the demand
has grown enormously each year from the dwellers in cities.
The opening up of railroads and telegraph lines in the middle and latter
part of the century made a great demand for wood. The building of ships
and steamboats, the opening of mines, the establishing of telephone and
trolley systems, the building of great cities, all these have called
steadily and increasingly for wood.
The time has long passed when wood was a hindrance to progress. For a
long time there has been a ready market at high prices and it is rapidly
reaching the point where we shall face an actual shortage of timber.
This is not true of all parts of the country, of course. Maine,
Washington, and parts of Oregon, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi,
Wisconsin and some other states, still have vast quantities of lumber,
but trains and ships carry it to all parts of the world so there is no
lack of a market.
The change from plenty, even great excess, to need, has come so
gradually that few persons, even those living in the forest regions,
have realized until within a very few years how general is their
destruction. Those who, riding about a small portion of the country
familiar to them, have been struck with the disappearance of the woods
and the cultivation of the lands, have looked upon it wholly as a sign
of progress, and have not realized that the same thing is going on in
every part of the country.
The wholesale destruction of the forests, without replanting, has come
mostly from ignorance. We have had all our resources in such great
abundance that we have not hitherto needed to learn the lessons that the
Old World has learned, sometimes at the cost of whole nations, but the
time has come when we _do_ need to learn them.
The first lesson is to study the various uses of the forests, to find
how they are being affected by present use, their wastes, and the best
means of preserving them. When all the people have learned these
lessons, they will, undoubtedly, gladly set about righting the wrongs
that have been done in the past.
The original forests of this country covered an area of about
850,000,000 acres, with nearly five and a half trillion board feet of
"merchantable," that is, salable, timber according to present standards.
(A board foot is one foot long, one foot wide and one inch in
thickness.) Considerably more than half the original number of acres are
still forested, but most of the land has been cut or burned over, some
of it several times, and the amount remaining of salable timber, which
includes only the best part of the trunk, is from two to two and a half
trillion, that is from 1,400 to 2,000 billion, feet. The yearly cut for
all purposes, including waste, is now over two hundred billion board
feet;--some authorities place the amount as high as two hundred and
seventy-five billion feet. This, however, probably includes firewood,
one of the largest uses of wood, but taken very largely from worm-eaten
wood that could not be cut into lumber. It also probably includes
boughs, and other unsalable parts of the tree.
The timber cut doubled from 1880 to 1905, is still increasing at almost
the same rate, and, if we had the timber, it would doubtless double
again by 1930. But even at the present rate, the forests now standing,
without allowance for growth, would be exhausted in from ten to sixteen
years. The yearly growth of timber in our present forests is estimated
at from forty-two to sixty billion feet, and the yearly cut at from
three to three and a half times the amount added for growth.
That is, we are using in four months at least as much wood as will
naturally grow in a year. The other eight months we shall be using our
forest reserves, and each year there will be less forest land to produce
new growth, as well as less old wood to cut.
Mr. R. A. Long, an expert lumberman who spoke before the first
Conservation Congress, estimated then that the forests, making allowance
for growth, would not last over thirty-five years. The government
figures indicate that they will last about thirty-three years, at the
present rate, but as the rate has been doubling every twenty-five years,
many persons who have studied the situation believe that the supply will
not continue in commercial quantities for manufacturing more than
twenty-five years.
We must understand, must think, what the destruction of our forests
would mean to us. It would mean fierce droughts and fiercer floods. It
would mean the gradual drying up of our streams, a scarcity of water to
drink, as in China to-day. It would mean that the manufacture of wooden
articles would practically cease. The thousand conveniences that we
enjoy as a matter of course would become rare and costly. It would mean
that only the rich could build houses of wood, and this would force the
masses of people into crowded quarters, not only the poor, but the
well-to-do also. These are only a few of the many disasters that would
follow the loss of our forests, and all these things might come to pass
before we ourselves are old!
If we knew that at a certain time a tidal wave would engulf our homes,
how we should work to save all that we could before the calamity
overtook us! And we should set about the saving of our forests with
equal care, for their destruction means distress for every one of us.
Fortunately, this is only the dark possibility. The methods of
prevention are well known to those who have studied the history of the
nations that have fallen, and the nations that have risen to power. It
is only necessary that all the people should know these things and
realize their importance, in order to keep conditions as they are at
present or even to better them.
The methods of prevention are five. They are:
(1) To use the trees in the most careful and conservative way without
the great wastes now common.
(2) To save the vast areas of forests that are now burned each year.
(3) To prevent loss from insects.
(4) To use substitutes: that is, to use other and cheaper materials to
take the place of wood whenever possible.
(5) To plant trees and to replant where old ones have been cut, until
all land that is not fitted for agriculture is covered with forests.
These are only the rules that good sense and good business would teach
us to follow, but we have not followed any of them in the past, and now
it will be necessary to do all these things if we are to continue to
have enough wood to use to keep pace with our progress in other
directions.
As an example of the rapid rate at which we are consuming our forests,
we use nine times as much lumber for every man, woman and child as the
people of Germany use, and twenty-five times as much as the people of
England use. This is due to several causes, many of which we would not
wish changed.
To begin with, this was a new and undeveloped country, a large part of
which had never been inhabited, and all the land, as fast as it was
occupied, must be built up with entirely new homes; and because wood is
the cheapest building material it is the one generally used.
The growth of all European countries is mostly by the increase of their
own people, while this is only a small percentage of our growth, which
comes largely from immigration from other countries, so the increase of
population is much greater here and the proportion of new homes needed
is far greater. Improvements of all kinds, public buildings, churches
and bridges were built in almost every European community long ago,
while in this country these things are being done each year in thousands
of places.
Wages are higher in this country, and more people are able to afford the
luxuries of life, vehicles, musical instruments, and the large variety
of small conveniences to be found in almost every American home but seen
in few homes of the poorer class in Europe.
These are a few of the reasons why we use such a large amount of lumber
each year. They are all conditions that mean a larger, better nation
than we could otherwise have, with a higher standard of living, and
while in some particulars, as we shall show, there should be changes
that would conserve our forests, the great wastes do not lie in the
_use_, but in the _abuse_ of the forests.
Now let us see what use is made of all the wood that is cut every year.
The greatest use of all is for firewood, but this is largely the
decaying or faulty trees from farmers' wood-lots, or the waste product
of a lumber region, so this does not constitute so heavy a drain on the
forests as the fact that 100,000,000 cords a year are used, would
indicate.
Twenty times as much of the salable timber is sawed into lumber as is
used in any other way. Nearly 40,000,000,000 board feet are thus used,
but lumber is used in a variety of ways, while the other cuts are
confined to a single use.
The first and greatest use of lumber is for building purposes, for
houses, barns, sheds, out-buildings, fences, and for window-sashes,
doors and inside finishings of all buildings, even those made of other
materials.
Next comes furniture of all kinds,--chairs, tables, beds, and all other
house, office, and school furniture; musical instruments, pianos, etc.,
vehicles of all kinds,--farm wagons, delivery wagons, carriages and
other pleasure vehicles, including parts of automobile bodies,
agricultural implements, plows, harrows, harvesters, threshing machines
and other farm implements. Though these are built largely of iron, yet
one-fourth of the implement factories report a use of 215,000,000 feet
of lumber a year, so the entire output of these factories calls for a
large amount of wood from our forests.
Car building is the other really great use for lumber. Freight cars,
passenger cars, and trolley cars use each year an increasingly large
proportion of the product of our saw-mills.
After these come the various smaller articles, which, though themselves
small, are used in every home and are turned out in such vast quantities
as to require a very large amount of lumber each year.
An empty spool seems a trifle, but the making of all the spools requires
the cutting of hundreds of acres of New England's best birch woods.
Butter dishes, fruit crates, baskets, wooden boxes of all kinds, tools
and handles, kitchen utensils, toys and sporting goods, picture molding
and frames, grille and fretwork, excelsior, clothes-pins, matches,
tooth-picks,--all these are mowing down our forests by the thousands of
acres.
The lumber cut includes all kinds of both hard and soft woods. A very
large percentage of this is of yellow or southern hard pine, of which
several billion feet a year are used.
An almost equal amount is used for hewn cross-ties for railroads and
trolley lines. Many sawed cross-ties are included in the item of lumber.
The hewed cross-ties are made from young oak-trees, or from hard-pine,
cedar and chestnut. Without them no more railroad or trolley lines could
be built, and the present systems could not be kept in repair. Many
other materials have been tried, but wood is the only one that has ever
proved satisfactory and safe for this purpose.
The next largest use of lumber is the grinding of it into pulp to be
used in making paper for our books, magazines and newspapers, wrapping
papers, etc. The woods used for this purpose are mostly spruce and
hemlock. The great sources of supply of pulp-wood are Maine and
Wisconsin, and large amounts are imported from Canada, which greatly
lessens the drain on our own forests.
Next in importance comes cooperage stock for the making of barrels. When
we consider the many uses of barrels,--that vinegar, oil, and liquors
are all shipped in tight barrels, which are mostly made of the best
white oak, and that flour, starch, sugar, crackers, fruits and
vegetables, glassware, chemicals, and cement are shipped in what are
called slack barrels, made of various hardwoods, the hoops being always
of soft elm, a wood which is rapidly disappearing, we can see the size
and necessity of this industry.
Round mine timbers, largely made of young hardwood trees, are used to
support the mines underground. Mining engineers say that on an average
three feet of lumber are used in mining every ton of coal taken out.
Assuming that 450,000,000 tons of coal are mined each year, this would
mean that almost a billion and a half feet a year are used in the coal
mines, and this is about the amount shown by the government report.
After this comes wood for lath used in building. This product is usually
taken from lower class wood or logging camp waste. Then comes the wood
for distillation into wood-alcohol for use in manufacture and to furnish
power in engines.
Next in quantity used comes veneer, which has two entirely different
uses. The highest grade woods are cut to about one-twentieth of an inch
and glued to cheaper woods as an outside finish in the making of
furniture. The other use is for veneer used alone, when a very thin wood
is desired. This is employed for butter dishes, berry baskets, crates,
boxes and barrels.
Next on the list come poles--electric railway, electric light,
telegraph, and telephone poles. Every pole that is erected for any of
these purposes, every extension of the service, and all replacing caused
by wind or decay, means the cutting of a tall, straight, perfect tree,
usually cedar or chestnut. If we think of each pole of the network that
covers the entire continent, as a tree, we shall better realize what our
forests have done in binding the nation together.
Leather is stained by soaking the hides in a solution containing the
bark of oak or hemlock. Sometimes an extract is made from chestnut
wood. This has caused one of the most criminal wastes of trees, for a
great deal of timber was cut down solely for the bark, and the wood left
to decay in the forest. But now, as the price of lumber advances, more
of it is used each year and less left to waste.
The bark and extract of the quebracho, a South American tree, are being
imported for use in tanning, and are still further reducing the drain on
our own forests.
Turpentine and rosin do not in themselves destroy the forests any more
than does tapping the maple trees for their sap, but in the making of
turpentine trees that are too small are often "boxed" and the trees are
easily blown down by heavy winds or are attacked by insects and fungi.
Many destructive fires also follow turpentining, so that on the whole
the turpentine industry is responsible for the destruction each year of
large areas of the southern pine forests. The methods of turpentining
introduced by the government result in the saving of thirty per cent.
more turpentine, and also protect the trees so that they may be used
fifteen or twenty years and still be almost as valuable as ever for
timber.
Twenty millions of posts are cut each year in the Lake States alone, and
the entire number used is probably two or three times as great.
These constitute the greater uses of wood, not a full and detailed list;
but it plainly shows that all the uses are not only desirable, but
necessary for our comfort and happiness, and that we would not willingly
sacrifice one of them, and in order that this shall not become
necessary, let us see what abuses we can find in the management of our
forests. And here we find the most startling figures of all.
Great and important as is our list of products made from wood, we are
surprised to learn that of all wood cut fully two-thirds is wasted in
the forests, left to decay or burned. The largest forests are now all
located far from the great manufacturing regions, and that means far
from the lumber market. The cost of transportation must be added to
every car of lumber sold. The freight on a car-load of lumber from the
South to Chicago or other points in the middle West is not less than a
hundred dollars, and from the Pacific coast it is very much higher.
It does not pay to send low-grade lumber when the cost is so great, and
as there is no local market a large part of each tree is burned. All the
upper end of the trunk and all branches are thus destroyed, although
much valuable timber is contained in them.
At one mill in Alabama a pile of waste wood and branches as high as a
two-story house burns night and day throughout the year, and that is
probably true of all the larger mills.
If the timber could be conservatively managed as are live-stock
products, so that all the waste could be utilized, all the small
articles, shingles, lath, posts, tan-bark and extract, pulp-wood, wood
for distillation and small manufactured articles would be made
by-products of the larger cuts.
Much has been said of the greed of large lumber companies in causing
wholesale and reckless destruction of the forests, and much of it is
doubtless true, but the lumber companies cite the fact that no farmer
will gather a crop of corn which will not pay for the labor cost of
gathering, and say that at the present prices of lumber they can not pay
the present freight rates to the factories. It seems therefore that a
certain amount of waste is unavoidable unless wood-working plants are
established near the forest regions.
The first great step in conserving our forests is to stop the
unnecessary wastes in use. The next step is to take measures to prevent
the great destruction of our forests by fire.
Those who have never lived in a great forest region can have little idea
of the extent of the damage caused by these great forest fires. The loss
of life of both man and animals, the sweeping away of houses and crops,
the homelessness and misery of those who have lost everything they had
saved, are not to be taken into account here, but only the loss of the
forests themselves.
It is estimated that the loss by fire is as great as the entire amount
cut for use in the entire United States. The National Conservation
Committee reports that 50,000,000 acres of woodland are burned over
yearly. This probably includes all burned-over lands, in much of which
the standing timber is not destroyed, but the saplings and seedlings are
killed as well as the grass for grazing and for the protection of the
roots. Much land is burned over in this way year after year until hope
of future growth is gone, though the damage to the large trees has not
been great. In one way this loss is even more serious, as it shuts off
the hope of future forests, but the loss of our full-grown standing
forests is grave.
In 1891 this loss amounted to 15,000,000 acres, or nearly forty thousand
acres every day in the year. Since then the work of the Forest Service
in fighting fires and the great clearing of the forests, has reduced
this somewhat, but it still amounts to no less than 30,000 acres of our
best salable timber a day. This is the really great and serious loss of
the forests.
All the wood that is used goes to make our country a better place to
live in, to make its people more comfortable and happy, but all that is
lost by fire is a loss to all the nation in comforts for the future, and
in the present it means high prices for lumber because our forests are
disappearing so rapidly.
And we are letting them burn at the rate of thirty thousand acres every
day! More than enough to supply all our needs. If any one could gather
together in one vast pile our houses and barns, our furniture, our
wagons and carriages, our farm implements, all our home conveniences,
our railroad cross-ties, our trolley and telephone poles, our papers and
magazines, and burn them all, the whole world would be roused by the
fearfulness of the loss. But we sit idly by and see the materials of
which all these things are made and must be made in the future, and with
them our shade, our water-sheds, the soil of the forest-lands itself
destroyed, with never a word of protest.
In a paper prepared for the National Conservation Congress, it was
stated that in some years government survey parties were unable to work
in the Rocky Mountains for whole seasons on account of the dense smoke,
and the fires were allowed to burn till the snows of winter put them
out. The writer further stated that he believed from observation that
the Forest Service, by checking fires in their beginning, has in the
last few years saved more timber than has been used for commercial
purposes.
Private owners of large tracts should be compelled to use the same care
in preventing fires that is exercised by the government. This care, and
the breaking up of the forests into smaller tracts by clearing the land
in alternate sections would soon reduce the fire loss so greatly as
almost to save us from anxiety for the future of our timber lands.
The next great loss to the forests is from insects. When insects have
bored into wood it becomes honey-combed by the canals cut by the little
insects and is utterly valueless. The loss to fruit and forest trees
will be taken up more fully in the chapter on insects. At present it is
only necessary, in order to show how much our forests suffer in this
way, to state that the yearly loss from this cause is placed at no less
than $100,000,000 a year, and the loss to fruits is counted at one-fifth
of the entire crop. Some slight idea of the danger to our forests will
be seen by the simple statement that forty-one different species of
insects infest the locust tree, eighty the elm, one hundred and five the
birch, one hundred and sixty-five the pine, one hundred and seventy the
hickory, one hundred and eighty-six the willow, while oak trees are
attacked by over five hundred!
This is exceedingly difficult to control and can perhaps never be
entirely checked. Some remedies will be suggested later, and by having
smaller forests, more carefully watched, some personal care can be given
to the trees. In Germany the trees are as closely watched as are other
crops, and the saving in value well repays this extra care and expense.
A much smaller loss comes from the winds that sometimes level all the
trees over many square miles. This can not, of course, be prevented,
except possibly in the turpentine forests, but care should be taken to
use all the wood, never allowing it to decay where it fell, and also to
replant the land with trees, unless it is fitted for agriculture.
A great saving of the forests may be effected by what is called
preservative treatment, which consists of treating railroad ties,
piling, mine timbers, poles, and posts with creosote or zinc chlorid to
prevent decay from the moisture of the ground or from injury by
salt-water borers. The use of creosote is almost double the cost of zinc
chlorid, but it is much more effective and durable. A fence post can be
treated with creosote for about ten cents, a railroad tie for twenty
cents, and a telephone pole for from seventy-five cents to a dollar. In
every case the timber treated will last twice as long as it would
without such treatment and in view of the present high prices it is bad
business policy to use timber in such a way that it will need replacing
soon. It is estimated that if all timbers which could be profitably
treated were so cared for, it would mean a money saving to the owners of
$47,000,000, and an annual saving in wood equal to 4,000,000,000 board
feet of lumber.
The next point in the conservation of the forests is to seek substitutes
to take the place of wood. There are many uses of wood which nothing
else will satisfactorily supply. For example, no railroad cross-tie has
ever been designed of other material that does not increase the danger
of railway accidents, though over two hundred kinds have been patented.
There is nothing that will take the place of wood in furniture, and in
many small articles. Some articles might be replaced in metal, but it
makes them too heavy or too expensive. But in certain lines there is an
excellent opportunity to use other materials to great advantage.
Cars are now being built of steel, and of combinations of metal with
asbestos. These are not yet entirely satisfactory, but it is hoped that
they can be perfected soon. Cement and concrete are taking the place of
wood to a great extent in building, and their use will doubtless
increase rapidly.
When veneer is used for barrels and boxes it affords a saving of nearly
two-thirds in the amount of wood required. This is a line of use where
cheaper substitutes should always be used if possible, because a package
is usually used only once, never more than twice, and then discarded, so
that the wood is put to little real service compared with other wooden
articles.
When possible, small articles of wood should be made only in a forest
region or near saw-mills to use the scraps and save an unnecessary drain
on the more valuable grades of lumber.
One of the most important lines in which substitutes are practicable is
in the making of paper and box-board or pasteboard. The latter is
sometimes called strawboard, because it is made from wheat straw, and
where it is manufactured, uses a large amount of straw that would
otherwise be wasted, but the great wheat fields of the West still have
immense quantities of unused straw, which, if made into strawboard,
would not only bring more prosperity to that region but would lessen the
drain on the forests.
A box bound with wire and made of corrugated paper now takes the place
for many light articles of the wooden packing-case. The strawboard also
takes the place of wood-pulp for smaller paper boxes. Rice-straw, hemp,
flax-straw, cotton fiber and peat have all been tested in a small way
and found to make excellent paper, and it is thought corn-stalks can
also be used, but none of these is now manufactured in the United States
on a large scale. This is largely because the price of pulp-wood is low,
and the cost of experimenting with new materials is great with the
results uncertain.
This brings us to the last one of our preventive measures for the
decline of our forests, the one which needs the most careful attention
of all--the replanting of the lands that are not fitted for agriculture,
and planting trees about houses and unoccupied spaces.
Many farmers have planted orchards on a part of their farm-lands and
many trees have been planted in town and country, but until a few years
ago there was no organized effort to plant trees.
Now many states have set apart a day which is called Arbor Day, for this
purpose, but in no state does it hold so important a place as it should.
It is observed by the schools but not by the general public.
In Germany there are regular tree-planting days in which all the people
take part. Every one who is not too poor--and he must be poor
indeed--plants a tree in his own garden, or in front of his home, in the
forest or in the highway; for himself or for the general good.
Each child plants a tree on his or her birthday every year, and watches
and cares for it as it grows. The roadsides are lined with fruit or nut
or flowering trees which have been planted in neat, orderly rows. These
things are in striking contrast to the observance of Arbor Day in this
country, where one tree suffices for an entire school, or at best each
class has a tree of its own. It is all a matter of enthusiasm and
education.
In considering the best trees for planting we come to the last great use
of trees of which we have not spoken. Fruit and nut trees supply us with
large quantities of the most wholesome and delicious food. The apple,
pear, peach, plum, and cherry grow in the central part of the United
States, and oranges, lemons, figs, olives and apricots in the warmer
parts.
By planting these trees in suitable places one may have a rich harvest
for many years to come. If a small fraction of the seeds of fruit trees
which are wasted each year were planted, the general food supply would
be greatly increased, and many benefits would be derived from the trees
themselves.
Have you ever heard the story of "Apple-seed John," the man who,
according to tradition, went through what is now western Pennsylvania,
Ohio and Indiana while the country was still a wilderness and planted
orchards for the settlers who, he was sure, would come later?
So many stories have been told of him that it is hard to discover how
much of the tale is really true. At least one poem has been written
about him, and the Reverend Newell Dwight Hillis has woven the facts and
fancies of his career into a charming book, _The Quest of John Chapman_.
The story is that he spent his winters in the settlements near the
Atlantic coast teaching the children or working at small tasks about the
farms, and taking his pay always in the seeds of apples, peaches, pears,
plums, and grapes. The farmers and their families saved all their seeds
for him and when spring came he filled his boat with seeds and started
down the Ohio River. When he reached a suitable landing-place he took
his bags of seeds on his back and trudged through the forest.
Whenever he came to an open space he planted an orchard, built a fence
of boughs about it, and started on again. And so he traveled on and on,
through all the spring and summer months, year after year, planting his
seeds for those who would come after him, until he grew too old to work.
The first settlers in those states found the orchards and vineyards
awaiting them, and a few trees are still standing that are said to have
been planted by Apple-Seed John. The story of this man who in his humble
way devoted his life to others is one that may well be told and
imitated, for while none of us can do the work he did, it may inspire
us with a wish to make some spot on earth better by planting our few
seeds or plants.
In carrying on this work in the schools as well as by the general
public, a regular plan should be followed. Much can be accomplished with
no expense at all, even in cities. In all cases the expense will be very
small compared to the good accomplished.
Seeds may be planted and later transplanted. This will require no
expense and little labor. Every child, large and small, in city and
country, can learn to do this work and can thus perform a real service.
Small saplings which are growing close together, where they can never
develop, may each be planted in a place where it will have a chance to
grow into a thrifty tree. Most farmers would be entirely willing to
allow the pupils to take such saplings from their wood-lots if the work
were properly done. This is an excellent work for country schools to
undertake, both for the good it will accomplish and for the training of
the pupils themselves in practical work.
Fruit trees of suitable size for planting may be had for about twenty
cents each. Most American children could easily save that amount from
money spent on candy, sweetmeats or toys so as to have a tree ready for
planting on Arbor Day which would yield them fruit as they grow older,
and be a source of pride and pleasure. Such trees will of course usually
be planted at the children's own homes, but it would be an excellent
idea to follow the German plan of planting public orchards just outside
the town. When the trees are old enough to bear, the children are
allowed on certain days to go and gather and eat the fruit and carry it
home in baskets.
The older boys in every school, whether city or country, should be
taught to plant and transplant trees in the best way. The following
directions for the work are sent out by the Department of Agriculture at
Washington:
"The proper season for planting is not everywhere the same. When the
planting is done in the spring, the right time is when the frost is out
of the ground and before budding begins.
"The day to plant is almost as important as the season. Sunny, windy
weather is to be avoided. Cool, damp days are the best. Trees can not be
thrust carelessly into a rough soil and then be expected to flourish.
They should be planted in properly worked soil, well enriched. If they
can not be planted immediately after they are taken up the first step is
to prevent their roots drying out in the air. This may be done by piling
fresh dirt deep about the roots or setting the roots in mud.
"In planting they should be placed from two to three inches deeper than
they stood originally. Fine soil should always be pressed firmly--not
made hard--about the roots, and two inches of dry soil at the top should
be left very loose to retain the moisture."
The reading of such poems as Lucy Larcom's "He who plants a tree plants
a hope," or William Cullen Bryant's, "Come, let us plant the apple
tree," and suitable talks or papers on trees, dealing with their kinds
and uses, on the benefits of forests, and on practical forestry, should
be a part of the Arbor Day exercises.
In many communities a tract of land which is not well suited for general
agriculture may be obtained for the benefit of the school, and some
simple work in forestry may be undertaken by the pupils. Sometimes a
farmer may be induced to give a small bit of waste land where the
experiment may be tried. Sometimes such land can be bought by the school
in one of the following ways:
A series of entertainments may be given by the pupils, the proceeds to
be applied to the buying of the land, and the pupils may also obtain
money in other outside ways to bring to the general fund. If only one
acre can be bought and cleared by the pupils, and properly planted, a
little at a time, a tree for each child's birthday, or by obtaining
small seedlings and saplings from the forest, it will be a source of
keen interest, and will give an added pleasure to the school work.
Watching the growth of the trees and caring for them will keep this
interest alive year after year, and in time it will become a valuable
property belonging to the school. Sometimes the school officials will
set aside a sum from the public money to purchase the land. In one High
School, one acre is thus bought each year, and every pupil in the senior
year gives and plants a tree. Sometimes the farmers or the merchants of
a community may unite in buying the land, which will, of course, become
public property, and set it aside for improvement after the manner of a
city park.
Sometimes women's clubs become interested in such a movement and will
raise the funds necessary for beginning it. It then becomes the duty of
the school, year after year, to plant and care for the land. After a
time the school will have a valuable property to sell, or can have a
yearly income from the sale of timber.
Such plans may be carried out in many schools. Every school can and
should do something to forward this great work. All school yards should
be well planted and care taken that the boy with a new knife does not
try it on the bark or that the bark is not rubbed from the trees in
careless play. Many trees planted in school yards have been destroyed
in this way.
But we shall not be safe if only the schools plant trees. Farmers and
lot owners should take up the work in earnest, adding as many trees as
possible each year. In this way they could insure an abundant supply of
fruit, nuts and timber for the future, could increase the value of their
property, and provide a steady income besides.
Farmers' institutes would find this a most important work to undertake,
arranging for a common plan to be carried out in an entire neighborhood,
and setting aside days in which all the members may work together to set
out trees by the roadsides. This brings us to the question of what kinds
of trees are best to plant.
For town or city lots, fruit trees should always be chosen, because they
bear in a short time and will add to the family food supply, and so
lessen the cost of living and increase the variety of food. Every farm
should have a good assortment of fruit. Any nurseryman's catalogue will
furnish lists of kinds so that a wise choice may be made. In selecting
fruit trees, great care should be taken to choose the best varieties.
For streets and roadsides, nut or wild fruit trees are best, for the
trees are generally graceful in appearance and will yield some return,
as the more popular maples and poplars will not. The chestnut is one of
the best trees for such planting, though it is of a rather slow growth.
English or American walnuts, pecans, mulberry and persimmon trees can be
grown in most parts of the United States.
One town in Kansas is planting fruit trees on all its streets, so that
in a few years there will be an abundance of fruit free to every
passer-by. This is a most excellent plan, but individuals would be
likely to find the fruit molested if only a few trees are planted in a
community.
Barn-lots and lanes should be planted with wild cherry, haws, elder,
dogwood, mountain-ash, and other wild fruits to serve as food for birds,
poultry, and hogs.
Where the banks of streams need to be protected from erosion, probably
the best tree for planting is the basket willow, which thrives well near
the water, has a heavy network of roots, and is valuable for weaving
into baskets and furniture.
For all hillsides and rocky places, as well as wood-lots, the hardwoods
which sell best for timber should be planted in the North and West, and
the evergreens near the sea-coasts and in the South. Forests of oak,
hickory, walnut, maple (especially the sugar maple, which yields a
steady return during the lifetime of the tree), elm, chestnut, and
locust will sell for a good price, and are always salable. It requires
many years to grow large timber, but by proper management several years
can be gained in its growth, and it is always a valuable investment for
a farmer to make for his children.
Not individuals only, but states and the national government as well,
should provide forests for the future, and this is the greatest duty of
all, for much of the most important work can only be done by a power
that can control the entire watershed at the head-waters of a
river-system.
For example, the Appalachian Mountains are the source of hundreds of
streams which flow east, west and south, and pass through many states.
These mountains were originally covered with a heavy forest growth, but
they belong largely to private companies who are cutting the forests at
a rapid rate.
The effect of this is seen in bare hillsides, washed by mountain
torrents which are causing disastrous floods on the lowlands, filling up
the streams, and carrying away much of the most fertile soil of some of
the southeastern states, and in the drying up of the small tributaries.
This can not be remedied by single companies nor by the states that
suffer most. The only remedy is for the government to buy the land at
the head-waters of the rivers and reforest it. The same conditions on a
smaller scale are to be found in every mountainous region where the
forests are cut away.
The United States owns a large amount of forest but not nearly enough to
insure a supply of wood for the future. The public forest lands are
nearly all in the West. They consist of national forests, national
parks, Indian and military reservations and land open to entry as timber
claims. In all they contain nearly 100,000,000 acres, or about half as
much as is contained in farmers' wood-lots and about one-fourth as much
as the amount owned by large lumber companies.
The United States, on its public domain, is setting about a careful
system of cutting and replanting. This system is known as forestry. It
has been worked out by some of the more advanced nations of Europe who
saw that destruction was coming on them through the cutting away of
their forests. Now forestry is practised by every nation except Turkey
and China. The principles have been well proved and the results of
scientific care of the forests are known to be even more sure than in
farming or live-stock raising.
The Department of Agriculture will send complete directions for planting
trees in rows at proper distances, will tell what kinds are best suited
to each region and condition, how to make them grow rapidly, and when to
cut. All these things should be thoroughly understood by every land
owner, large or small, but at present forestry is practised on only one
per cent. of all land in this country, owned by private persons or
companies, though it is practised on seventy per cent. of all public
lands.
The countries that show the best results in forestry are some of the
German states, particularly Prussia and Saxony, and France. In Prussia
the rate of production is three times as great as it was seventy-five
years ago. There is three times as much saw timber in a tree as there
was at that time, and the money returns from an average acre of forest
are now nearly ten times what they were sixty years ago. In Saxony the
state forests are receiving two dollars and thirty cents per acre a year
above all expenses from forests on land not fitted for agriculture, and
the profit is increasing every year.
France and Germany together spend $11,000,000 a year on their public
forests and receive from them an income of $30,000,000, or nearly three
times as much, while the United States spends for its public forests
more than ten times as much as it receives.
Many of our states are taking an active interest in forestry and are
buying tracts of land of low value for state forests. New York is taking
the lead in the work of planting forests, but even here the amount done
is much less than it should be. The state forester says that one million
trees are planted each year while twenty millions should be planted.
The National Conservation Commission reported that the entire United
States should plant an area larger than the states of Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and West Virginia, in order to supply our future needs, but that
we have actually planted an area less than the state of Rhode Island.
This, then, is the lesson we should learn in regard to our forests: To
guard against waste in cutting and use, fire, and insects, and to plant
trees until our future supply of timber is assured, till the head-waters
of our streams are protected and our waste lands made into valuable
forest tracts; till every farm has its wood-lot, and every community its
fruit and shade. It is a work in which every one of us may take some
part and from which good results are certain to come.
ORCHARDS
Another phase of tree-culture that does not, strictly speaking, come
under the head of forestry, but which should be considered here, is the
cultivation of orchards, either for home use or for commercial purposes.
In a few sections, fruit is the most valuable of all crops. Oranges in
Florida and California, peaches in some of the southern states, and
apples in the northwest, are more profitable than any field crops, and
their cultivation is made the subject of careful scientific study. But
there are many other states where the raising of fruit in commercial
quantities is almost altogether neglected, and to which almost all fruit
is shipped from other sections. This is particularly true in the rich
corn and wheat producing states of the Mississippi Valley.
The early settlers each planted an orchard for home use, and these
produced the finest quality of fruit in abundance; but usually, after
being planted, the trees were left to take care of themselves, while the
farmer's time and attention were given to his fields of grain.
As time passed, plant diseases and insect pests increased, winds broke
down many of the unpruned trees, frosts often blighted the entire crop
of fruit, and the uncultivated, sod-choked trees produced fruit that was
less in quantity and poorer in quality each year.
In recent years the highest grade of apples have all been shipped from
the West. These are grown on irrigated land; a high price being paid
both for the land itself and for the water-privilege, and the orchards
are seldom more than ten acres in extent. Wind and frost may cause as
much damage here as in the eastern states and plant diseases and insect
enemies are equally liable to injure the crop.
But here orcharding is carried on in a scientific manner. The small size
of the orchard makes it possible for the owner properly to care for
every tree, and each one must be made a source of profit. Every
condition that tends to affect the crop is carefully studied, and the
remedy found and applied.
There is no reason why the same care and labor should not produce
equally good results with far less expense in the well-watered regions
of the eastern and central part of the United States. The neglected
orchard will prove a failure anywhere, as surely as will a neglected
garden, and success will come only by giving to fruit the same
intelligent care that would be bestowed upon any other crop.
The cultivation of apples should receive particular attention in the
north central states, because they have great food value, are not
perishable, can be shipped long distances, and the demand, both at home
and abroad, is always greater than the supply. The home orchard,
however, should contain many kinds of fruit, and the same general rules
in regard to the care of the orchard apply to all of them.
First, the orchard should not be located on land that is fitted to
produce the best farm crops, but it must not be too steep and hilly to
be cultivated. A sunny sloping hillside is best suited to orchard crops.
In most cases little fertilization is needed except the planting of
clover or some other leguminous crop. If corn be planted in young
orchards, as is often the case, potash should be used as a fertilizer
after the crop is gathered, since both corn and fruit trees draw very
heavily on the potash in the soil.
Old orchards sometimes need a single application of a general fertilizer
containing all the principal soil elements. All fertilizers should be
applied not merely around the base of the trunk, but as far from it as
the tree spreads its branches in all directions.
The trees should be carefully pruned and special attention paid to
trimming the tops low to prevent damage from winds, and also to make
spraying easy.
The soil should be deeply cultivated the first few years in order to
make the roots strike deep into the ground, and afterward the soil
should receive some surface cultivation every year.
When there is danger of frost after the trees have bloomed, brushwood
fires are lighted and a dense smoke is raised over the orchard by
burning pots of crude oil. This smoke is helpful in preventing the
formation of frost, and will often be the means of saving the crop.
The other great causes of failure to grow large quantities of perfect
fruit, if the varieties are well chosen, are plant diseases and damage
by insects. The methods of their control are given in the chapter on
Insects, and include principally the disposal of all decayed fruit, the
raking up and burning of all leaves in infected orchards, arsenical and
lime sprays, and, above all, such attention to pruning and cultivation
as will keep the trees in good condition.
Lastly, the keeping of bees in the orchard will pay well, not only for
the honey they produce, but because they assist greatly in carrying the
pollen from flower to flower, and so increasing the crop of fruit.
REFERENCES
Forests. Report National Conservation Commission.
Forest Conservation, Papers and Discussions, Report Governor's
Conference.
Arbor Day, Forest Service Department of Agriculture Circular, 96.
Tree Planting on Rural School Grounds. Forest Service Department of
Agriculture Circular, 134.
Practical Assistance to Tree Planters. Forest Service Department of
Agriculture Circular, 22.
How to Transplant Forest Trees. Forest Service Department of Agriculture
Circular, 61.
Forest Planting on Coal Lands. Forest Service Department of Agriculture
Circular, 41.
Forestry in the Public Schools. Forest Service Department of Agriculture
Circular, 130.
Primer of Forestry. (Pinchot). Forest Service Department of Agriculture
Circular, 173.
The Use of the National Forests. (Pinchot.)
What Forestry Has Done. Forest Service Department of Agriculture
Circular, 140.
Forest Preservation and National Prosperity. Forest Service Department
of Agriculture Circular, 35.
Forest Planting and Farm Management. Forest Service Department of
Agriculture Circular, 228.
Facts and Figures Regarding our Forest Resources. Forest Service
Department of Agriculture Circular, 11.
Drain Upon the Forests. Forest Service Department of Agriculture
Circular, 129.
The Waning Hardwood Supply. Forest Service Department of Agriculture
Circular, 129.
Timber Supply of the United States. Forest Service Department of
Agriculture Circular, 116.
Forestry and the Lumber Supply. Forest Service Department of Agriculture
Circular, 97.
How to Cultivate and Care for Forests in Semi-arid Regions.
Forest Service Department of Agriculture Circular, 54.
Paper-making Materials and their Conservation. Bureau of Chemistry, 41.