Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-10-11
FORESTRY.
1t is Time Americans Wake Up and
Stop the Destruction of Our
Forests.
What the Old World is Doing.


Done to preserve the old and zeplant new
forest trees In regions from which 200 or
800 years since the forests had been de-
stroyed. At the schools of forestry
Intelligent men asked, 'Why do not Amer
leans learn by our errors and do some
thing to save their forests now?n The
only reply could make was that I noped
we might begin TO save before We were
driven TO 1t by necessity as other nations
have been.
The pew forests over Prussia from
Hamburg by way of Berlin through to
Breslau, and in the circle within the dis
lance from Berlin TO Dresden. as a radiou
are doing well. IL is common TO see
plantations largely of pine, OF from forty
TO 600 acres, ten, fifteen, thirty five and
fifty years old, all within few miles of
each other, the different heights of trees
on the land lines sharply sho wing their
ages. Some of the older trees are sixty
feet high and eighteen to twenty-five
inches in diameter, all growing very even
and thick. The plantations are kept
clean with the lower dead branches broke
off for use by poor people as fuel, and all
this on land that looked light, and as if it
had been run out like the "old fields" of
the Carolinas and Virginia. Many of
those new forests in Germany ware being
ont clear for the timber, lumber and wood
Others we're being preserved with the best
trees cut out and sold, under the care of
foresters. The land itself was being re-
vived and was approaching virgin con-
ditiOn again. These new forests now
furnish the timber of the country.
In the forests of Saxony and Bohemia,
up the Elbe and Spree, more particularly
of Saxon Switzerland and up the River
Eibe into Bohemia, l visited some twen6y
or thirty mills that were saving timber
grown upon the streams tributary to
these waters. Some good trees were
worked up here thirty and thirty six
inches at the butt end, and cut the whole
length, say sixty to seventy feetlong. In
the larger mills the whole log is run
through gang saws, and then the product
is tied up as one log ny itself and so sent
to market, slab and all. The saws were
thinner than ours. Very small logs, too,
often no more than five inches in diane
ter, were cut. The price of this lumber
was no more than it is In the Middle or
New England States, but of course the
Europeans use less lumber than we do.
From an extensive examination of Ger
many, Austria, Belgium and Northeastern
France, Northern Switzerland, and the
Duchy of Baden, [ should say that under
the wonderful care and intelligence of
the present system the forests were quite
kee ping up with the demand for the COM
mOe lumber wants of the country and
some even being shipped to Portugal,
Spain and the MediterraD can. [ visited
the saw mills on the Necker and Rhine,
climbed the Feldberg and the Tannus
and saw foresters carefully cutting and
saving the windfall trees and planting
new one for every one taken out. The
government is doing SO much for the
forests everywhere. In the little province
OF Baden, smaller than some of our New
England or New York counties, over 100
men are EN- ployed and paid by the gov
eminent to care for the woodlands. In
Saxony and Bohemia / vent to the homes
of the foresters and found some of them
experts in various branches of natural
history. The heads of departments were
graduates of some school of forestry, and
they were advanced as they deserved and
held their offices for life or good behavior.
The Germans have waited until their tim
Der WAS cut off before the began to re-
piece 1t, but they are now prosecuting the
work with rare patience and skill.
In the summer of 1887 [ visited again
the British Isles, and examined the lum-
Der industry of the eastern coast, of Ed
inburg particularly. l saw much of the
lumber of Norway and Eastern Russia,
as it was brought into England. There
is little large or wide timber left In those
countries. Much the same process of
stripping forest areas has gone on there
as ia the countries before named. There
IS much less timber IN Norway, Sweden
and Russia available than is generally
supposed, and it's quelity is poorer
sound enough, but hard and full of knots,
very much like the lumber of lower
Europe. Evidently the virgin forests of
the north temperate zoLe are III North
America. The impression created by the
European forest examination made by
me in 1886 and 1887 is this: Trees will
grow If properly planted and cared for,
hut 1t Is like the first attempts in raising
tame grasses from the old farms of the
east in the virgin prairies of the west.
The soil seems rich enough to grow tim
othy, bat the cultivated grass will not
flourish until the wild mature" of she
soil is subdued by many plowings and
trlmplngs of the tame cattle; even so,
when land has been stripped Of woods
and worn by farm crops, it is hard to re-
COFoT III Win IoE65bs Du5G mere Tue dlO Oh
science is peed-d. Here Is work for the
schools of forestry that have done so
much for France and Germany. The for
est restoration of Europe Ia due TO sci
ence, and is accom- pIIsked by men trained
for the purpose.
Again the more regularly distri buted
rainfall of western Europe, especially in
the north and Baltic countries, is more
favorable for the restoration of forests
than in America generally, though in
some parts of Europe the soil is so much
worn out il is almost i'm possible to make
trees grow. Inde' d, all over Europe, and
especially east and south of the MediteT-
rannean, and over most of the older settl-
ed portions of the eastern hemis phere, it
seems to have been the special mission of
the Aryan race to destroy and remove the
forests from The face of the earth.
In the Lumbar yards of England, Scot
laud, Hambur,, Bremen, Antwerp and
France, I saw much of the timber from
America. Our forests are drawn upon to
supply the waste of centuries in the old
world. 1t is time we began TO think of
outstanding our own resourses.-Garden
aud Forest.
About year ago an extraordinary will
was flied al Festa, whereby the testator,
phy sIcIan named Goldenberger de Buda,
left half his fortune-sbout a quarter of
million OF horlns-to accumulate for