children of the West miss all the nut trees that the boys and girls of
the East enjoy. But to make up for this lack there are some in the West
that are not found in the East. The sugar pine, the pinon pine, and the
digger pine afford delicious nuts which once formed an important article
of food for the Indians. In the West the broad-leaved trees do not form
dense forests. They are scattered among the pines on the lower mountain
slopes, in the valleys, and along the streams. The most important of
these trees are oaks of many kinds, soft maple, alder, cottonwood,
sycamore, and laurel.
The dense forests of the Western mountains consist almost wholly of
narrow-leaved trees. Among them are the pines and firs of different
kinds, spruce, cedar, redwood, and "big trees." The redwoods and "big
trees" are both known as sequoias; they grow to an immense size upon the
mountains of California. The coniferous forests of which these trees
form a part are among the most wonderful and interesting ones on the
earth.
If you will take a forest map of our country and place it beside a
rainfall map, you will quickly discover why the forests are found where
they are. You will see that the forests are found where there is more
than thirty inches of rain each year, except in the far North, where it
is very cold. You can say, then, that the climate is the chief thing
that determines where the forests shall grow.
If the climate is warm and the rainfall heavy, the forest vegetation
is so dense and rank that you can hardly travel through it. Such forests
are found in the tropical parts of the country. Where little rain falls
there is scanty vegetation, as upon the deserts of the Southwest. But
where it is very cold, even if there is much snow or rain, you will find
no trees.
[Illustration: _George J. Young_
Mountain hemlocks, which John Muir considered the most beautiful of all
conifers.]
We must not forget that there is another thing that affects the growth
of trees, and that is the soil. Pines like a sandy soil, while most
other trees do not. Certain cedars and cypresses like swampy places
where no other trees will grow. Many beautiful meadows and prairies have
no trees, because the soil is not well drained.
It is very easy to understand why trees cannot grow where it is dry, but
how shall we learn of the effect of cold upon them? Shall we have to
take a journey of thousands of miles into the far North, until we
finally come to the land called the _Barren Lands_ or _tundras_, where
the trees become stunted and at last disappear--a land where they cannot
longer fight against the cold and live?
Fortunately such a long journey is not necessary. All we have to do is
to climb a great mountain range, like the Sierra Nevadas, to pass
through all the different climates which we would experience on a long
journey to the arctic regions.
It is only a few miles from the hot San Joaquin Valley, at the base of
the Sierras, where it is so dry that irrigation is necessary, to the
summit of the range, where the winter climate is as cold as it is in the
arctic regions.
In going up the mountains we first come to the foothills, where there is
a little more rain than in the valley. Here we find oak trees growing.
Farther up there is still more rain and we come to the pines. Soon we
reach the most wonderful coniferous forest in all the world. Here not
only is there a great variety of trees, but because of the favorable
climate they grow to a great size. As we approach the summit of the
mountains the trees become smaller, and at an elevation of about two
miles they shrink to the size of little bushes and finally disappear.
They can no longer stand the fierce winds and cold storms of this arctic
region.
[Illustration: _George J. Young_
East Vidette, King's River Country, California, showing how, as we
approach the summit of the mountains, the trees become smaller.]
We have learned now that the trees do not grow haphazard over our
country, but that the rain, the temperature, and the soil determine
where they can live.
Within the heart of the forest the trees will come again if we cut them
down, but upon its borders, where the air is drier, it is more difficult
for them to spring up anew. If we cut them down carelessly and allow
fires to burn over the surface, and the water to wash away the soil,
they may never come back.
It is important, then, that we understand why trees grow in some places
and not in others, in order that we may know how to take care of them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WHAT ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE TREES?
Every living thing is engaged in a struggle for air to breathe and for
something to eat. Those that make their homes on the land also have to
struggle for water. The stronger rob the weaker; for, among all of them
except man, might always makes right. Men are learning that
unselfishness is the better way, although they do not always practice
it.
In this struggle the animals have an advantage over the plants, for if
food fails in one place they can move to another. Among the animals also
the mother tries to protect her children; and, in the case of some,--the
wolf, for example,--a number will hunt together for the common good.
It is quite different with the plants. They must grow where the seeds
take root. If there is little sunlight or water or the soil is poor,
they must make the best of what they have.
The plants have to struggle not only with such enemies as insects,
winds, fire, and browsing animals, but with each other, for every tree
is the real or possible enemy of every other tree. Brother seeds
sprouting under the same parent maple struggle with each other for the
food and moisture in the soil and for the best place in the sunlight.
The one that gets the most of these will grow the faster and choke some
of its weaker brothers.
[Illustration: _Edward S. Curtis_
Trees that struggle with cold and storm.]
In yonder grove of pines there are trees of all ages and sizes. The
older ones have much the advantage and take a part of the food and
sunlight that the smaller ones require. How the little ones stretch
up and grow tall and slender in their attempt to get the sunlight!
But in spite of all their efforts some of them must die.
Some kinds of trees grow faster than others. Where a number are
springing up together, the slow-growing ones will stand less chance of
ever becoming great trees. In this way the yellow pine sometimes chokes
out the cedar, and the fir gets the advantage of the sugar pine.
The bright, warm sun is the enemy of the tree that loves the shady
hillsides. The swamp is the enemy of the tree that must have loose, dry
soil. The cold is the enemy of the tree that is used to a hot climate.
Is it not strange that what is good for one tree is an enemy of another?
Many kinds of trees have their own particular insect enemies which
attack them and no others. Some of these insects live upon the leaves,
others eat the sapwood under the bark, while a few attack the roots.
Certain insects burrow in and eat the heartwood. Although this does not
always kill the tree, it weakens it and makes the wood unfit for use.
The cedar and the hickory are among the trees injured in this manner.
The foliage of the broad-leaved trees is the delight of many insects.
They sometimes eat the leaves so closely that the tree is killed; for
the trees breathe through their leaves and can no more do without them
than they can without their roots.
The gypsy moth, which did no great harm in its European home, was
brought to this country and accidentally set free. It at once began to
attack the leaves of the elm, that beautiful tree of the old New England
villages. Now it is destroying other trees and, notwithstanding the
fight which we have made against it, we have not yet been able to
exterminate it.
[Illustration: _American Forestry Association_
Insects are destroying the trees of this forest.]
The chestnut tree, which every Eastern child loves for its nuts, is now
being destroyed by a fungus which may kill every one of these trees in
the country.
The white-pine blister, also brought over from Europe, is now
threatening all the white pines and the related trees of our country.
This disease has already such a start in the East that we may not be
able to stop it.
The dainty mistletoe, about which there are so many pretty Christmas
legends, is a deadly enemy of many trees. The seed of this fungus is
carried, by the birds or by the wind, from one tree to another. When it
sprouts, tiny roots go down through the bark to the sap, on which it
feeds until the tree is killed.
All our fruit trees have their deadly enemies which cause a loss of
many millions of dollars every year. Among the worst of these is the San
Jose scale, which was carelessly brought into the country from China.
[Illustration: _Pillsbury's Pictures, Inc._
A dwarf white pine which has found a foothold in the rocks on a
mountain top.]
The pear blight has destroyed whole orchards of pear trees in the
Western states. The citrus canker is now threatening the orange orchards
of the Southern states.
For years we have been searching over the world for new and better
varieties of fruit trees. With the shipments of such trees we have
brought some of the worst of the diseases that we have just mentioned.
We should have all foreign trees most carefully inspected before
admitting them to the country. We should also be very careful about
shipping fruit or other trees from one part of our country to another.
Diseases are often carried in this way into places which otherwise they
could not reach.
Field mice, gophers, and rabbits eat the bark of young fruit trees and
kill those which are not carefully protected. In some parts of our
country the apple and peach tree borers are a serious menace to young
orchards. Grasshoppers occasionally come in dense swarms and eat the
leaves from every tree or plant in their path.
The valuable sugar pine of the Western mountains is not seeding itself
as rapidly as it should, and we fear it will become extinct. The
beautiful silver-gray squirrel loves the nuts of this pine, and it is
said that he eats so many that few are left to sprout and make new
trees. For this reason some people would like to make it lawful to kill
all the gray squirrels that one wished. This would be too bad, for we do
not believe the gray squirrel is the cause of the trouble. It is more
likely that the lack of young sugar pines is due partly to its struggle
in the forest with more rapidly growing trees and partly to the less
frequent occurrence of forest fires to burn off the humus on the ground.
We know that the seeds of certain trees find difficulty in sending their
roots down through the humus to the soil beneath.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
An avalanche has passed through this forest.]
The narrow-leaved or cone-bearing trees, which are the main source of
our lumber, also have other enemies. The most destructive of these are
the little pine beetles which lay their eggs in the bark of the yellow
pine, sugar pine, and tamarack pine. From these eggs there hatch worms
which burrow under the bark until they cut off the flow of the sap. This
kills the trees. The trees that are young and strong are sometimes able
to pour out enough sap into the wounds to drown the insects, but many
thousands of trees in the Western mountains are destroyed every year by
these insects.
Wind and lightning are both enemies of the forests. Hundreds of forest
fires are set every summer by thunder storms, but the rangers usually
discover such fires soon enough to put them out before they have done
much harm.
The pasturing of forests by stock does great injury, because of the
browsing and trampling underfoot of the young trees. Sheep and goats are
the worst of all the animals and should be kept out of those forests
where the surface particularly needs protection and where the young
trees require all the encouragement that Nature can give them in order
to make a successful start in life.
We have learned something about the many enemies of the trees, but the
worst one has not yet been mentioned. Can you guess what it is? This
terrible enemy is man,--not savage man or Indian, but civilized man.
Although man has more need for forest trees than has any other animal,
he is at the same time more ruthless in his treatment of them. Man
destroys more trees every year, as a result of fires which he sets and
of his wasteful methods of lumbering, than all the other enemies of the
trees put together.
The forest area of the world is constantly growing smaller, and we must
soon learn to treat the trees with more care or they may, like many of
the wild creatures, nearly disappear from parts of the earth where they
are most needed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
HOW THE FORESTS ARE WASTED
O forest home in which the songbirds dwell!
The squirrel and the stag shall miss the spell
Of thy cool depths when summer's sun assails,
Nor more find shelter in thy shadowed vales.
* * * * *
All will be silent; echo will be dead;
A field will lie where shifting shadows fled
Across the ground. The mattock and the plow
Will take the place of Pan and Satyr now.
The timid deer, the spotted fawns at play,
From thy retreats will all be driven away.
Farewell, old forest; sacred crowns, farewell!
Revered in letters and in art as well;
Thy place becomes the scorn of every one,
Doomed now to burn beneath the summer sun.
All cry out insults as they pass thee by,
Upon the men who caused thee thus to die!
Farewell, old oaks that once were wont to crown
Our deeds of valor and of great renown!
O trees of Jupiter, Dordona's grove,
How ingrate man repays thy treasure trove
That first gave food that humankind might eat,
And furnished shelter from the storm and heat.
PIERRE DE RONSARD, translated by BRISTOW ADAMS; _American Forestry_,
XVI. 244
When our grandfathers came to America they found the country so covered
with forests that they had to cut and burn the trees in order to obtain
the ground on which to raise their crops. The Eastern states could not
have been settled without clearing the land, and we cannot blame the
pioneers for doing under those circumstances that which today would be
very wrong.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The farmer wastes the trees by girdling them and then allowing them to
rot.]
There is now enough land so that it is no longer necessary to destroy
the trees in order to raise our food supplies. The forests constitute
one of the great natural resources of our country and men should not be
allowed to waste them for private gain.
Although the need for more land has long passed, the habit of reckless
tree cutting still continues. There are now parts of the East where none
of the primeval forest remains and very little of the second growth.
Firewood is expensive and many a farmer has to buy coal, who, if he and
his ancestors had been careful, might have a woodlot to supply not only
fuel, but lumber for his buildings.
Many of the lands once cleared were found not suited to farming and have
been left to grow up to brush. If the farmer were wise he would replant
some of these lands with such trees as spruce, hickory, walnut, or
maple. Although his ancestors toiled early and late to get these trees
out of the way, a few acres of them now would be a fortune.
There are parts of our country, particularly in the South and West,
where the settlers are still cutting the trees to get them out of their
way. In distant mountain valleys where there is no market for lumber,
men are chopping down the great pines. They would make fine lumber, for
they are tall and straight, but instead of being put to some useful end
their fate is the bonfire. It makes no difference to these men that they
are wasting what it has taken Nature hundreds of years to produce nor
that in other parts of the country timber is scarce and expensive.
In Germany and Switzerland the forest resources are carefully looked
after. As fast as the grown trees are cut from a field, young trees are
planted in their places. The keeping of a certain part of the land in
forest is held to be of advantage to all the people. For this reason men
are not allowed to cut trees upon their own land without permission from
the forest officer.
Many years ago, when lumbering became an important industry and the
mills began to turn out immense quantities of boards and beams of every
sort needed by the growing population of our new country, it was
believed that the supply would never be used up. Only the best and
clearest logs were sawed into lumber, and a large part of each tree was
left on the ground to rot or to feed the first fire that occurred. Now
lumber is scarce and expensive; and the poorer grades also are in much
demand.
Have you ever seen the giant sugar pines on the slopes of the Western
mountains? Next to the sequoias they are the largest of our American
trees. A single tree has furnished lumber enough for a house. Sugar
pine has now become so valuable that it is used only for such purposes
as window sash, doors, and similar articles. We have taken no care of
these wonderful trees until recently, but have allowed them to be cut
and wasted in the most reckless fashion.
If you could go through the sugar-pine forests, you would find hundreds
and even thousands of these mighty trees lying on the ground rotting.
This is the work of the shake or shingle maker. He has been as
thoughtless in his cutting of these giants which have been hundreds of
years growing as is the farmer of the stalks of grain that springs up
and ripens its seed in one season. The shingle maker must have material
which splits well. He hunts for the straightest and cleanest trees. At
most he does not use over fifty feet of the trunk, and if the tree does
not split to suit him, then all, or nearly all, of the tree is left to
rot.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
In turning this giant sequoia into lumber more than half the tree is
wasted.]
The waste of the lumberman is not so great, but it is enough to open our
eyes to one of the reasons for the rapid disappearance of our forests.
On the average only about one third of the wood of every tree cut is
actually used. The rest is lost in the logging operations and during the
various processes through which it passes before it reaches our hands.
In addition to the waste of the trees actually cut, there is the loss of
the young trees due to careless logging. Too often the lumbermen do not
care in what condition the logs leave the forest. They want only the
trees now fit for lumber, and they want to get them in the easiest way
possible.
Instead of going through the forest and picking out only the ripe or
mature trees and leaving the rest for a later cutting, the lumbermen
usually take everything that has any present worth. Trees that are less
valuable for lumber, such as the firs, are used for skidways and
bridges, and when no longer needed for these purposes are left on the
ground. No care is taken to see that the great trees fall with the least
possible damage to the young growth. Upon the preservation of the young
trees, which almost everywhere occupy the open spaces between the large
ones, rests our hope of a future forest.
When the work of lumbering in any particular region is finished, the
sight is such as must make Nature weep, for it almost brings tears to
our eyes. The young trees are broken and crushed to the ground, branches
and fragments of the trunks lie scattered about, while above the ruin
rise those trees not considered worth cutting. The once beautiful and
majestic forest is now ready for fire. Some passer-by may drop a
lighted match or cigarette, and you can easily form a picture in your
mind of what happens.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The shake maker wastes the larger part of a great sugar pine that has
been a thousand years in growing.]
In the countries of Europe lumbermen are very careful; not a particle of
the cut tree goes to waste. The logs are sawed without removing what we
call "slabs." The sawdust is saved and used in the manufacture of wood
alcohol. If we saved all the present waste in the logging and milling of
our pines, we could make all the turpentine needed in our country. If we
saved what is now wasted of the poplar and spruce, we should have
material enough to make all the paper we use.
There are still large and valuable forests in the Southern Appalachian
Mountains, in the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada-Cascade Range, and
the Coast Ranges. These regions were settled later than the Eastern
states, and parts of them are yet remote from markets.
Our wise lumbermen are beginning to understand that it is better to cut
over the forest carefully, so that by and by there will be another crop.
Nature is doing all she can to keep up the supply of trees, and, if we
give her half a chance, there will be timber enough both for us and for
those that come after us. The forest crop is like any other crop, except
that it cannot be cut every year.
Every one should understand that he has an interest in the forest.
Although he may not own a foot of land, yet his prosperity depends in
part on how the forests are managed.
If the forests are not taken care of, there will sometime be a wood
famine. If the mountain slopes are stripped of their trees, the streams
will no longer run clear and the low streams in summer will lead to a
water famine, which in turn might easily cause a bread famine.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HOW THE FORESTS SUFFER FROM FIRES
He who wantonly kills a tree,
All in a night of God-sent dream,
He shall travel a desert waste
Of pitiless glare, and never a stream,
Nor a blade of grass, nor an inch of shade--
All in a wilderness he has made.
O, forlorn without trees!
He who tenderly saves a tree,
All in a night of God-sent dream,
He shall list to a hermit thrush
Deep in the forest by mountain stream,
With friendly branches that lead and shade,
All in a woodland that he has made.
O, the peace of the trees!
He who passionately loves a tree,
Growth and power shall understand;
Everywhere he shall find a friend.
Listen! They greet him from every land,
English Oak and the Ash and Thorn,
Silvery Olive, and Cypress tall,
Spreading Willow, and gnarled old Pine,
Flowering branches by orchard wall--
Sunshine, shadow, and sweetness of glade--
All in a Paradise he has made.
O, the joy of the trees!
_The Dryad's Message_
Have you ever seen a forest fire? It is a terrible sight to see the
flames sweep up a mountain side. They run along the ground licking up
the leaves and dead branches. They leap from tree to tree, and then with
a roar the sheet of flame goes to the top of a tall pine. The air is
like the breath from an oven and is filled with sparks and with
suffocating smoke. The birds and animals flee away in every direction.
[Illustration: _American Forestry Association_
The forest fire sweeps everything in its path.]
It is no wonder that those whose homes are in the forest gather quickly
to fight the fire, for if they cannot control it, they may lose
everything that they possess. If there is a wind blowing, the fire will
probably sweep over many miles of country. At night, though, when the
air becomes cooler and more quiet, the men can get the advantage of it.
You can understand, of course, that it is impossible to use water
against such a fire, for water is not to be had throughout most parts of
the forests. Instead of using water, the men fight fire with fire.
Taking shovels, hoes, and rakes to a suitable place some distance ahead
of the fire, they rake away the dead litter on the ground, making a
broad, clean path through the forest. Then they set "back-fires" along
that side of this clean path which lies toward the coming fire. These
back-fires burn slowly toward the main fire, and when they meet both
must die out for lack of fuel.
For many years forest fires have caused as much damage as the lumbermen;
but now most of the forests are patrolled by rangers during the summer,
and there are fewer serious fires.
How do the fires start in the forest? It is supposed that long ago the
Indians set many fires to keep the woods open for their hunting.
Lightning has always been a frequent cause of forest fires. As many as a
dozen fires are known to have started during a single thunderstorm. But
such fires are not as serious as they once were, because the rangers are
on the watch for them and put them out before they get well started.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
Fires destroyed the forest that once covered this region and its place
is now mostly occupied by small bushes.]