Wood and Forest

It would seem that it is a hopeless task to control the insect enemies of forest trees and forest products or to prevent losses from their ravages, but the writer is informed by Dr. A. D. Hopkins, the expert in the Bureau of Entomology in charge of forest insect investigations, that the results of their investigations show conclusively that there are many practical and inexpensive methods of control now available thru the suggestions and recommendations in recent Department publications on forest insects, as well as thru direct correspondence with the Department. These methods are based on the principle of prevention and not on that of extermination. It has been shown that thru proper adjustment of the details in management of forests and of the business of manufacturing, storing, transporting, and utilizing the products a large percentage of the losses can be prevented at small additional expense, and that even when considerable cost is involved the amount saved will often represent a handsome profit.

Footnote 1: The evils of grazing are increased by the fact that fires are sometimes started intentionally in order to increase the area of grazing land.

THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF THE FOREST.

• References:*
  • (1) Meterological.
    • Pinchot, Primer I, pp. 75-76.
    • Roth, First Book, pp. 198-202.
    • Bruncken, pp. 27-29.
      
      
  •      Water.
    • Roth, First Book, p. 27.
      
      
  •      Snow, ice and frost.
    • Pinchot, Primer, I, p. 76.
    • Bruce, For. and Irr., 8: 159, Ap. '02.
      
      
  • (2) Vegetable.
    • Roth, First Book, p. 4.
    • Boulger, pp. 70-75.
    • Spaulding, For. Bull., No. 22.
    • Ward, Chaps. V, VI, VII.
    • Sickles, pp. 41-45.
    • von Schrenck, For. Bull., No. 41, Pl. III.
    • Sherfesee. For. Circ. No. 139.
    • von Schrenck, Bur. Plant Ind. Bull. No. 36.
    • von Schrenck, Bur. Plant Ind. Bull. No. 32.
    • von Schrenck, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1900, p. 199.
      
      
  • (3) Animal.
  •      Grazing.
    • Pinchot, Primer I, pp. 69-73, II, p. 73.
    • Pinchot, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1898, p. 187
    • Coville, For. Bull. No. 15, pp. 28-31.
    • Roth, First Bk., p. 130, 178.
      
      
  •      Insects.
    • Comstock, passim.
    • Hopkins, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1902, pp. 265-282.
    • Roth, First Book, pp. 115-130.
    • Howard, Entom. Bull., No. 11, n. s.
    • Hopkins, Spaulding, Entom. Bull., No. 28.
    • Hopkins, Entom. Bull., No. 48.
    • Hopkins, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1903, pp. 313-329.
    • Hopkins, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1904, pp. 382-389, Figs. 43-56.
    • Pinchot, Primer, I, p. 73.
    • Felt, N. Y. State Museum Bull., 103, Ent. 25.
    • Hopkins, Entom. Bull. No. 32.
    • Hopkins, Entom. Bull. No. 56.
    • Hopkins, Entom. Bull. No. 58.
    • Spaulding and Chittenden, For. Bull. No. 22, pp. 55-61.

* For general bibliography, see p. 4.

Chapter VII.

THE EXHAUSTION OF THE FOREST.

The exhaustion of the forest in the United States is due to two main causes: (1) Fire, and (2) Destructive Lumbering.

FIRE.

It is not commonly realized that forest fires are almost entirely the result of human agency. When cruisers first began to locate claims in this country, practically no regions had been devastated by fire. Now such regions are to be seen everywhere. Altho lightning occasionally sets fire to forests, especially in the Rocky Mountains, the losses from this cause are trifling compared with the total loss.

Opportunities for fire. There are a number of facts that make the forest peculiarly liable to fire. Especially in the fall there are great quantities of inflammable material, such as dry leaves, twigs, and duff lying loose ready for ignition. The bark of some trees, as "paper birch," and the leaves of others, as conifers, are very inflammable. It follows that fires are more common in coniferous than in deciduous forests. After lumbering or windfalls, the accumulated "slash" burns easily and furiously, Fig. 104. Moreover a region once burned over, is particularly liable to burn again, on account of the accumulation of dry trunks and branches. See Fig. 107.

Long dry seasons and high wind furnish particularly favorable conditions for fire. On the other hand, the wind by changing in direction may extinguish the fire by turning it back upon its track. Indeed the destructive power of fires depends largely upon the wind.

Causes of fire. Forest fires are due to all sorts of causes, accidental and intentional. Dropped matches, smouldering tobacco, neglected camp fires and brush fires, locomotive sparks, may all be accidental causes that under favorable conditions entail tremendous loss. There is good reason to believe that many forest fires are set intentionally. The fact that grass and berry bushes will soon spring up after a fire, leads sheep men, cattle and pig owners, and berry pickers to set fires. Vast areas are annually burned over in the United States for these reasons. Most fires run only along the surface of the ground, doing little harm to the big timber, and if left alone will even go out of themselves; but if the duff is dry, the fire may smoulder in it a long time, ready to break out into flame when it reaches good fuel or when it is fanned by the wind, Fig. 105. Even these ground fires do incalculable damage to seeds and seedlings, and the safest plan is to put out every fire no matter how small.

Altho it is true that the loss of a forest is not irremediable because vegetation usually begins again at once, Fig. 106, yet the actual damage is almost incalculable. The tract may lie year after year, covered with only worthless weeds and bushes, and if hilly, the region at once begins to be eroded by the rains.

After the fire, may come high winds that blow down the trunks of the trees, preparing material for another fire, Fig. 107.

The statistics of the actual annual money loss of the timber burned in the United States are not gathered. In 1880 Professor Sargent collected much information, and in the census of that year (10th Census, Vol. IX) reported 10,000,000 acres burned that year at a value of $25,000,000.

In 1891, the Division of Forestry collected authentic records of 12,000,000 acres burned over in a single year, at an estimated value of $50,000,000.

In the Adironacks in the spring of 1903, an unprecedentedly dry season, fire after fire caused a direct loss of about $3,500,000.

In 1902, a fire on the dividing line between Washington and Oregon destroyed property amounting to $12,000,000. Within comparatively recent years, the Pacific Coast states have lost over $100,000,000 worth of timber by fire alone.

During September, 1908, forest fires raged in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, New York and Pennsylvania. The estimates of loss for northern Michigan alone amounted to $40,000,000. For two weeks the loss was set at $1,000,000 a day. The two towns of Hibbing and Chisholm were practically wiped out of existence, and 296 lives were lost.

Certain forest fires have been so gigantic and terrible as to become historic.

One of these is the Miramichi fire of 1825. It began its greatest destruction about one o'clock in the afternoon of October 7th of that year, at a place about sixty miles above the town of Newcastle, on the Miramichi River, in New Brunswick. Before ten o'clock at night it was twenty miles below New Castle. In nine hours it had destroyed a belt of forest eighty miles long and twenty-five miles wide. Over more than two and a half million acres almost every living thing was killed. Even the fish were afterwards found dead in heaps on the river banks. Many buildings and towns were destroyed, one hundred and sixty persons perished, and nearly a thousand head of stock. The loss from the Miramichi fire is estimated at $300,000, not including the value of the timber. (Pinchot, Part 1. p. 79-80.)

Of such calamities, one of the worst that is on record is that known as the Peshtigo fire, which, in 1871, during the same month, October, when Chicago was laid in ashes, devastated the country about the shores of Green Bay in Wisconsin. More than $3,000,000 worth of property was burnt, at least two thousand families of settlers were made homeless, villages were destroyed and over a thousand lives lost. (Bruncken, p. 110.)

The most destructive fire of more recent years was that which started near Hinckley, Minn., September 1, 1894. While the area burned over was less than in some other great fires, the loss of life and property was very heavy. Hinckley and six other towns were destroyed, about 500 lives were lost, more than 2,000 persons were left destitute, and the estimated loss in property of various kinds was $25,000,000. Except for the heroic conduct of locomotive engineers and other railroad men, the loss of life would have been far greater.

This fire was all the more deplorable, because it was wholly unnecessary. For many days before the high wind came and drove it into uncontrollable fury, it was burning slowly close to the town of Hinckley and could have been put out. (Pinchot, Part I, 82-83.)

One of the most remarkable features of these "crown fires," is the rapidity with which they travel. The Miramichi fire traveled nine miles an hour.

To get an idea of the fury of a forest fire, read this description from Bruncken. After describing the steady, slow progress of a duff fire, he proceeds:

But there comes an evening when nobody thinks of going to bed. All day the smoke has become denser and denser, until it is no longer a haze, but a thick yellowish mass of vapor, carrying large particles of sooty cinders, filling one's eyes and nostrils with biting dust, making breathing oppressive. There is no escape from it. Closing windows and doors does not bar it out of the houses; it seems as if it could penetrate solid walls. Everything it touches feels rough, as if covered with fine ashes. The heat is horrible altho no ray of sunshine penetrates the heavy pall of smoke.

In the distance a rumbling, rushing sound is heard. It is the fire roaring in the tree tops on the hill sides, several miles from town. This is no longer a number of small fires, slowly smouldering away to eat up a fallen log; nor little dancing flames running along the dry litter on the ground, trying to creep up the bark of a tree, where the lichens are thick and dry, but presently falling back exhausted. The wind has risen, fanning the flames on all sides, till they leap higher and higher, reaching the lower branches of the standing timber, enveloping the mighty boles of cork pine in a sheet of flame, seizing the tall poles of young trees and converting them into blazing beacons that herald the approach of destruction. Fiercer and fiercer blows the wind, generated by the fire itself as it sends currents of heated air rushing upward into infinity. Louder and louder the cracking of the branches as the flames seize one after the other, leaping from crown to crown, rising high above the tree tops in whirling wreaths of fire, and belching forth clouds of smoke hundreds of feet still higher. As the heated air rises more and more, rushing along with a sound like that of a thousand foaming mountain torrents, burning brands are carried along, whirling on across the firmament like evil spirits of destruction, bearing the fire miles away from its origin, then falling among the dry brush heaps of windfall or slashing, and starting another fire to burn as fiercely as the first. * * *

There is something horrible in the slow, steady approach of a top fire. It comes on with the pitiless determination of unavoidable destiny, not faster than a man can walk. But there is no stopping it. You cannot fight a fire that seizes tree top after tree top, far above your reach, and showers down upon the pigmy mortals that attempt to oppose it an avalanch of burning branches, driving them away to escape the torture and death that threatens them. (Bruncken, American Forests and Forestry, 106-109.)

Real forest fires are not usually put out; men only try to limit them. A common method of limitation is to cut trenches thru the duff so that the fire cannot pass across, Fig. 108. In serious cases back fires are built on the side of the paths or roads or trenches toward the fire, in the expectation that the two fires will meet. In such cases great care has to be taken that the back fire itself does not escape. Small fires, however, can sometimes be beaten out or smothered with dirt and sand, since water is usually unavailable.

But "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." One of the best of these preventions is a system of fire lanes. Even narrow paths of dirt will stop an ordinary fire. Roads, of course, are still better. Systems of fire lanes, Fig. 109, are made great use of in Europe and British India. Belts of hardwood trees are also cultivated along railways, and to break up large bodies of conifers.

If in lumbering, the slash were destroyed or even cut up so as to lie near the ground and rot quickly, many fires would be prevented.

Some states, as New York, have a fairly well organized system of fire wardens, who have the authority to draft as much male help as they need at $2.00 a day to fight forest fires. Unfortunately "ne'er-do-wells" sometimes set fire to the woods, in order to "make work" for themselves. Much preventive work is also done by educating the public in schools and by the posting of the fire notices,¹ Fig. 110.

DESTRUCTIVE LUMBERING.

How the reckless and destructive methods of lumbering common in America came into vogue, is worth noting.²

The great historical fact of the first half century of our country was the conquest of the wilderness. That wilderness was largely an unbroken forest. To the early settler, this forest was the greatest of barriers to agriculture. The crash of a felled tree was to him a symbol of advancing civilization. The woods were something to be got rid of to make room for farms, Fig. 111. In Virginia, for example, where the soil was soon exhausted by tobacco culture and modern fertilizers were unknown, there was a continual advance into the woods to plant on new and richer land. The forest was also full of enemies to the settler, both animals and Indians, and was a dreaded field for fire. So there grew up a feeling of hate and fear for the forest.

More than that the forest seemed exhaustless. The clearings were at first only specks in the woods, and even when they were pushed farther and farther back from the seacoast, there was plenty of timber beyond.

The idea that the area of this forest could ever be diminished by human hands to any appreciable extent so that people would become afraid of not having woodland enough to supply them with the needed lumber, would have seemed an utter absurdity to the backwoodsman. * * * Thus the legend arose of the inexhaustible supply of lumber in American forests, a legend which only within the last twenty years has given place to juster notions. (Bruncken, p. 57.)

This tradition of abundant supply and the feeling of hostility to the forest lasted long after the reasons for them had disappeared. When we remember that every farm in the eastern United States, is made from reclaimed forest land and that for decades lumber was always within reach up the rivers, down which it was floated, it is not strange that reckless and extravagant methods of cutting and using it prevailed.

Following the settler came the lumberman, who continued the same method of laying waste the forest land. The lumber market grew slowly at first, but later developed by leaps and bounds, until now the output is enormous.

Lumbering in America has come to be synonymous with the clearing off of all the marketable timber, regardless of the future. It treats the forest as tho it were a mine, not a crop, Fig. 112. Since 1880 the total cut has been over 700,000,000 feet, enough to make a one inch floor over Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware, or one-half of the State of New York, an area of 25,000 square miles.

Other countries, too, have devastated their forests. Portugal has a forest area of only 5 per cent. of the total land area, Spain and Greece, each 13 per cent., Italy 14 per cent. and Turkey 20 per cent. Whether the destruction of the American forests shall go as far as this is now a live question which has only just begun to be appreciated.

Another reason for the reckless American attitude toward the forest is the frequency and severity of forest fires. This has led to the fear on the part of lumbermen of losing what stumpage they had, and so they have cleared their holdings quickly and sold the timber. Their motto was "cut or lose."

A third incentive to devastative methods was the levy of what were considered unjust taxes.

Hundreds of thousands of acres in the white pine region, notably in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, have been cut over, abandoned, sold for taxes, and finally reduced by fire to a useless wilderness because of the shortsighted policy of heavy taxation. To lay heavy taxes on timber land is to set a premium on forest destruction, a premium that is doing more than any other single factor to hinder the spread of conservative lumbering among the owners of large bodies of timber land. * * * Heavy taxes are responsible for the barrenness of thousands of square miles which should never have ceased to be productive, and which must now lie fallow for many decades before they can be counted again among the wealth-making assets of the nation. (Pinchot, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1898, pp. 184-185.)

On the treatment of the questions of fire and taxes depends the future of American forest industries. (Bruncken, p. 226.)

Undoubtedly much waste has been caused by sheer ignorance of forest conditions and methods, which, if followed, would secure successive crops instead of one, but it is safe to say that the desire for immediate profits has been the dominant cause of reckless lumbering. So short-sighted has the policy of private owners proved itself, that it is a question whether any large extent of forest land can safely be left in private hands. No individual lives long enough to reap more than one forest crop. Only corporations and States can be expected to have an interest long enough continued to justify the methods of conservative lumbering.

As a matter of fact, nearly one-half of the privately owned timber of the United States is held by 195 great holders, the principal ones being the Southern Pacific Company, the Weyerhauser Timber Company, and the Northern Pacific Railway Company, which together own nearly 11 per cent. of the privately owned forests of the country. These large holders are cutting little of their timber, their object, however, being not so much to conserve the forests as to reserve to themselves the incalculable private profits which are expected to come with the future enormous increase in the value of timber.

Over against this policy, stands that of the United States Forest Service of increasing the area of the National Forests in order to conserve them for the public welfare. The pity is that the government ever let the forests pass out of its hands. Only forty years ago seventy-five per cent. of the timber now standing was publicly owned. Now about eighty per cent. of it is privately owned. In the meanwhile its value has increased anywhere from ten to fifty fold, according to locality.³ Some large corporations, however, like the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Kirby Lumber Company, of Texas, and the International Paper Company, have entered upon a policy of conservative lumbering.

Of the actual practices which distinguish destructive lumbering, a few may be cited. Stumps are cut too high and tops too low. Good lumber is wasted on lumber roads and bridges, Fig. 113. Saplings are torn down in dragging out logs. Slash is left in condition to foster fires and left with no shade protection. Seedlings are smothered with slash. Seed trees are all cut out leaving no chance for reproduction. Only poorer sorts of trees are left standing, thus insuring deterioration. Paper pulp cutting goes even farther than lumbering, and ordinarily leaves nothing behind but a howling wilderness.

The production of turpentine from the long-leaf pine, Fig. 114, at the annual rate of 40,000 barrels has meant the devastation of 70,000 acres of virgin forest.

In view of this wholesale destruction it becomes of interest to know how much still remains of the timber supply of the United States. The latest and most authoritative estimate of standing timber in continental United States, excluding Alaska, gives a total of 2,800,000,000 M feet B.M.,⁴ of which 2,200,000,000 M feet are privately owned, about 539,000,000 M feet are in the National Forests (Fig. 119, p. 272), and 90,000,000 M feet are on the unreserved public lands, National parks, State lands and Indian reservations.

Earlier estimates were hardly more than guesses. For example the census of 1880 estimated the stumpage of the U. S. at 856,290,100 M feet, while the census of 1900 gives a total of 1,390,000,000 M feet. The discrepancy appears still greater when it is remembered that in the meantime 700,000,000 M feet were cut. Of this amount 500,000,000 M feet were of conifers or 80,000,000 M feet more than were included in the estimate of 1880. The simple fact is of course that the earlier estimates were gross underestimates, due to the fact that they were based on entirely inadequate data, and therefore can not be used to obscure the now unquestionable fact that the timber supply of this country is surely and rapidly melting away.

The Forest Service estimates that the present annual cut of saw timber is about 50,000,000 M feet. At this rate the present stand would last about 55 years and the privately owned timber only 44 years. This estimate does not allow for growth and decay.

While the population of the United States increased 52 per cent. from 1880 to 1900, during the same period the lumber-cut increased 94 per cent. In other words the yearly increase in use is 20 to 25 per cent. per capita, that is, fast as the population grows, the lumber consumption increases nearly twice as fast. This increase in the lumber-cut far overbalances the growth of trees.

It is also to be remembered that this increase in the use of lumber is in spite of the enormous increase of substitutes for lumber, such as brick, cement and steel for building, and steel for bridges, vehicles, fences, machinery, tools, and implements of all kinds.

How lavishly we use lumber may further be appreciated from the fact that we consume 260 cubic feet⁵ per capita, while the average for 13 European countries is but 49 cubic feet per capita. In other words every person in the U. S. is using five times as much wood as he would use if he lived in Europe. It is estimated that on an average each person in this country uses annually the product of 25 acres of forest. The country as a whole, cuts every year, between three and four times more wood than all the forests grow in the meantime. By contrast, the principal countries of Europe, cut just the annual growth, while Russia, Sweden and Japan, cut less than the growth. In other words, the 2,800,000,000,000 feet B.M. of the stumpage of the United States is a capital which is constantly drawn upon, whereas, the 944,700,000,000 board feet of the forest of the German Empire is a capital which is untouched but produces annually 300 board feet per acre.

One striking evidence of the decrease of the timber supply is the shifting of its sources. Once the northeastern States produced over half of the lumber product. They reached their relative maximum in 1870 when they produced 36 per cent. At that time the Lake States produced about 24 per cent. By 1890 the Lake States came to their maximum of 36 per cent. Today the southern States are near their maximum with 41 per cent., but the center will soon shift to the Pacific States. Their product rose from less than 10 per cent. of the whole in 1900 to 17 per cent. in 1908, Figs. 115 and 116. When that virgin forest has been cut off, there will be no new region to exploit; whereas, heretofore, when a region was exhausted, the lumbermen have always had a new one to which to move. At the annual meeting of the Northern Pine Manufacturers' Association in Minneapolis, Minn., January 22, 1907, Secretary J. E. Rhodes made this striking statement:

Since 1895, 248 firms, representing an annual aggregate output of pine lumber of 4¼ billion feet, have retired from business, due to the exhaustion of their timber supply. Plants representing approximately 500 million feet capacity, which sawed in 1906, will not be operated in 1907.

The shifting of the chief sources of supply has, of course, been accompanied by a change in the kinds of lumber produced. There was a time when white pine alone constituted one-half of the total quantity. In 1900 this species furnished but 21.5 per cent., in 1904 only 15 per cent., of the lumber cut.⁶ We do not use less pine because we have found something better, but because we have to put up with something worse.

The present annual cut of southern yellow pine is about 13¼ million M feet, or a little less than one-third of the total cut of all the species. At the present rate of consumption, it is evident that within ten or fifteen years, there will be a most serious shortage of it. Meanwhile the cut of Douglas fir on the Pacific coast has increased from 5 per cent. of the total lumber cut in 1900 to 12 per cent. in 1905. This increase is in spite of the fact, already noted (p. 262) that the great timber owning companies of the northwest are holding their stumpage for an expected great increase in value.

Another evidence of shortage is the almost total disappearance of certain valuable species. Hickory, which once made American buggies famous, is getting very scarce, and black walnut once commonly used for furniture, is available now for only fine cabinet work, veneers, gun stocks, etc. Hardwoods that are fit for the saw are rapidly decreasing. The hardwood cut of 1900 of 8,634,000 M feet diminished in 1904 to 6,781,000 M feet.

A still further evidence of the decreasing supply, is the rising scale of prices. White pine, which sold for $45.00 per M during 1887-1892, sold for $100.00 f.o.b. N. Y., Jan. 1, 1911. Yellow poplar went up in the same period, 1887-1911, from $29.00 to $63.00. Yellow pine rose from $18.00 in 1896 to $47.00 in 1911, and hemlock, the meanest of all woods, from $11.50 in 1889 to $21.00 in 1911, Fig. 118.

It is to be remembered, moreover, that as the timber in any region becomes scarcer, the minimum cutting limit is constantly lowered, and the standard of quality constantly depreciated. Poorer species and qualities and smaller sizes, which were once rejected, are now accepted in the market. For example, 6 inches is now a common cutting diameter for pine and spruce, whereas 12 inches was the minimum limit, and on the Pacific coast there is still nothing cut below 18 inches. This cutting of smaller sizes is largely due to the capacious maw of the pulp mill, which swallows even the poorest stuff. Altho the amount of wood used for paper pulp is small in comparison with the total lumber production, being about 5.4 per cent., yet this cutting of young growth keeps the forest land devastated. In 1906 nearly 9,000,000 tons of wood were used for paper pulp in the United States.

No one who is at all familiar with the situation doubts for an instant that we are rapidly using up our forest capital. In fact it is unquestionably safe to say that our present annual consumption of wood in all forms is from three to four times as great as the annual increment of our forests. Even by accepting the highest estimate of the amount of timber standing we postpone for only a few years the time when there must be a great curtailment in the use of wood, if the present methods of forest exploitation are continued. Every indication points to the fact that under present conditions the maximum annual yield of forest products for the country as a whole has been reached, and that in a comparatively short time, there will be a marked decrease in the total output, as there is now in several items. (Kellogg, Forestry Circular, No. 97, p. 12.)

On the other hand, it is to be remembered that there are influences which tend to save and extend the forest area. These will be considered in the next chapter, on the Use of the Forest.

Footnote 1:

LOOK OUT FOR FIRE!

Rules and Laws.

Fires for clearing land near a forest must not be started until the trees are in full leaf. Before lighting such fires three days' notice, at least, must be given to the Firewarden and occupants of adjoining lands. After such fires are lighted, competent persons must remain to guard them until the fire is completely extinguished, and the persons starting such fires will be held responsible for all damages notwithstanding notice had been given to the Firewarden.

Fires will be permitted for the purposes of cooking, warmth and insect smudges, but before such fires are kindled, sufficient space around the spot where the fire is to be lighted must be cleared from all combustible material; and before the place is abandoned, fires so lighted must be thoroly quenched.

All fires other than those hereinbefore mentioned are absolutely prohibited.

Hunters and smokers are cautioned against allowing fires to originate from the use of firearms, cigars and pipes.

Especial care should be taken that lighted matches are extinguished before throwing them down.

All persons are warned that they will be held responsible for any damage or injury to the forest which may result from their carelessness or neglect.

Girdling and peeling bark from standing trees on state land is prohibited. Fallen timber only may be used for firewood.

All citizens are requested to report immediately any cases which may come to their knowledge of injury to woodlands arising from a violation of these rules.

Then follow quotations from the laws of the state of New York.

Footnote 2: For the common methods of logging see Handwork in Wood, Chapter I.

Footnote 3: See Summary of Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Lumber Industry. February 13, 1911. Washington, D. C.

Footnote 4: A board foot is one foot square and one inch thick.

Footnote 5: 167 cubic feet equal about 1000 board feet.

Footnote 6: Forestry Circular, No. 97.

THE EXHAUSTION OF THE FOREST

• References:*
  • (1) Fires.
    • Bruncken, pp. 183-207.
    • Pinchot, Agric. Yr. Bk., p. 189.
    • Suter, For. Circ. No. 36.
    • U. S. Tenth Census, Vol. IX, p. 491 ff.
    • Pinchot, Primer, pp. 77-88.
    • Roth, First Book, pp. 104-112.
    • Sterling, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1904, p. 133.
      
      
  • (2) Destructive Lumbering.
  •      The Settler's Tradition.
    • Bruncken, pp. 40-59, 94.
    • Roth, First Book, pp. 41-45.
    • Pinchot, Primer, II, p. 82.
      
      
  •      Taxation.
    • For. and Irr., April, '06.
    • Pinchot, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1898, p. 184.
      
      
  •      Reckless Practices.
    • Pinchot, Primer II, 42-47.
    • Pinchot, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1898, p. 184.
    • Pinchot, For. Circ., No. 25, p. 11.
    • Price, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1902, p. 310.
    • Fox, For. Bull., No. 34, p. 40.
    • Peters, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1905, pp. 483-494.
    • Graves, Agric. Yr. Bk., 1899, p. 415.
    • Suter, For. Bull., 26, pp. 58, 69, 76.
    • Mohr, For. Bull. No. 13, p. 61.
    • Bruncken, pp. 90-98.
      
      
  •      The Timber Supply.
    • Kellogg, For. Circ., No. 97 ...
    • Zon, For. Bull., No. 83.
    • Fernow, Economics, pp. 35-45.
    • Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Lumber Industry. Part I, Feb. 13, 1911.

* For general bibliography, see p. 4.

Chapter VIII.

THE USE OF THE FOREST.

Man's relation to the forest has not been entirely destructive and injurious. He has exerted and is more and more exerting influences which while still enabling him to use the forest, also preserve and improve it. These activities may all be included under the term Forestry.

The objects of modern forestry then are threefold: 1. The utilization of the forest and its products, the main object; 2. The preservation of the forest, i.e., its continued reproduction; 3. The improvement of the forest.

UTILIZATION.

The uses of the forest are threefold: (1) Protective, (2) Productive, and (3) Esthetic.

(1) Protective. The forest may be used as a protection against floods, wind, shifting sand, heat, drought, etc. The National Forests of the United States, Fig. 119, with the state forests, which include one-fifth of the total forest area, are largely treated as "protection forests" to maintain the head waters of streams, Fig. 120, used for irrigation, for power or for commerce. The attempt now being made to reserve large areas in the White Mountains and southern Appalachians is chiefly for this purpose of protection.

A comparison of Figs. 120 and 121 shows clearly the difference between a region protected by forest and one unprotected.¹