The Sully County watchman. (Clifton, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1894, 1888-10-20
FORESTRY.
1t is Time Americans Wake Up and
Stop the Destruction Of Our
Forests.
What the Old World is Doing.

! While in Europe in 1856 l noticed in
Germany, particularly on the lower Elbe,
the Spree, and generally over tho old
worn ont lands, that much was being
done TO preserve the old and repiant 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?" The
only reply could make was that hoped
we might begin to save before we were
driven to i. By necessity as other nations
have been.
| The rev forests over Prussia from
Hamburg by way of Berlin through to
Breslau, and in the circle within the dis
tapce from Berlin TO Dresden, as u radiou
| are doing well. 1t is common TO see
plantations largely of pine, of from forty
TO GOO acres, ten, fifteen, thirty-five and
fifty years old, ali 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 Carolinss and Virginia. Many of
those new forests in Germany were being
oct clear for the timber, lumber and wood
others were being preserved with the best
trees cnt out and sold, under the care of
foresters. The land itself was beiug 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, visited some twenGy
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 feet long. In
the larger mills the whole log ia run
through gang saws, and then the product
is tied up as one log by itself and so sent
to market, slab and all. The saws were
thiuner 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 il 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
mon lumber wants OF the country and
, some even being shipped to Portugal,
Spain aad the Mediterran 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 a
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 employed and paid by tho gov
ernment to care for the woodlands. In
Saxony and Bohemia l went 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
- ber was cut off before the began to re-
place 1t, bu: they are now prosecuting the
work with rare patience and skill.
!, In the summer of 1887 / visited again
; the British Isles, and examined the lrm-
3 ber industry of the eastern coast, OF Ed
inburg particularly. | saw much of the
:, lumber OF Norway and Eastern Russia,
= rs it was brought into England. There
u is little large or wide timber left in those
20 countries. Much the same process of
stripping forest areas has gone on there
y as in the countries before named. There
u is much less timber in Norway, Sweden
81 and Russia available than is generally
4 supposed, and its quality 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 in North
io America. The impression created by the
=. European forest examination made by
e' me in 1886 and 1887 is this: Trees viii
grow If properly planted and cared for
10 but it is like the first attempts in raising
tame grasses from the old farms of tn,
u' east in the virgin prairies of the west
&c The soil seems rich enough to grow tim
othy, but the cultivated grass will no
C. flourish until the wild nature of sh,
soil is subdued by many plowings an,
- tramplngs of the tame cattle; even so
=. when land has been stripped of wood
and worn by farm crops, 1t Is hard to re
cover il with forest. Just here the aid O
VI science is needed. Here is work for tn
az schools of forestry that have done 6,
re much for France and Germany. The for
,s 40 est restoration of Europe is due to sci
~ ence, and is accomplished by men traine
for the purpose.
Again the more regularly distributes
., rainfall of western Europe, especially il
Oh the north and Baltic countries, is NOR
favorable for the restoration of forest
A' than in America generally, though il
some parts of Europe the soil is SO muc
worn ont it is almost i'm apostolic to max
trees grow. Indeed, all over Europe, an
especially east and south of the Medite,
ts rannean, and over most of the older sett
ed PORTIONS of the eastern hemisphere,
is seems to have been the special mission G
the Aryan race to destroy and remove tn
hit forests from the face of the earth.
ne In the lumber yards of England, SEQ;
laud, HAMBURG, Bremen, Antwerp an