The Pensacola journal., 1920-04-30
GREELEY WARNS
UNITED STATES
NEW CHIEF FORESTER PIC
TUREs WAY FRANCE HANDLES
HER FORESTS.

With the newspapers Of the United
States only two and three days ahead
(of their print paper supply and many
of them throwing away advertising
in order to continue publishing, the
American Forestry Association of
Washington points to the way France
great lesson to this country, the as
sociation says, and points to the hous-
ing situation and the great demand for
lumber at this time in printing the
warning of Col. William B. Greeley. a
director of the American Forestry
Association and the new chief for
ester OF the United States. During the
war the biggest regiment in the world,
the Twentieth Engineers Forest, had
an opportunity to get an idea of
French forest management. On this
subject Col. Greeley, of that regic
ment, writes in the American For
estry Magazine:
"A lumberjack sergeant of the
Twentieth Engineers remarked that
the lumber business in France seemed
to be concerned more with growing
trees than cutting them into boards.
That in a nutshell is the difference be-
tween the timberland owner in France
and the timber baron of America. The
conception of forest as land produc-
ing crop after crop of wood extends
from the intensively managed public
forests of France down to the peasant
who owns half a hectare of poplars
in a swampy, bottom.
"To us in the United States, who
are wont to think of forestry as pos
sible only for the nation or state, it is
of interest to know that two thirds of
the wonderfully conserved forests of
France are owned by private citizens.
The technical care of these 16 million
acres of private forests does not diff
fer, in essential respects, from that
given to the state and communal
properties.
About 80 per cent of them, how
ever, are devoted to the production of
hardwood fuel, with crops every 20
years. whereas the aim of the public
forests is to grow as much large tim
Der as possible. Upon her privately
owned forests, France :hus depends
for the bulk f her lumber and fue,
wood. Private forestry IS {. vital fs C.
tor in her national econmy.
THE hardwood coppice, or sprouts,
which furnish the bulk of the wood
fuel of the country and were Gu: over
enormous areas to- keep the American
army warm, have an average value on
the stump of probably $500 per cord.
The value OF a fuel crop grown on a
well managed forest In 30 years
ranges from $50 TO $50 an acre as K
stands in the woods: and an additional
stumpage return is usually realized
from the small brush or fagor wood.
The stumpage values of the principal
timber trees of France averaged, in
1917, at least five times the prevailing
prices OF similar species in the United
States. Maritime pine stumpage in
the Landes. comparable to rather low
grade shortleaf pine in the southern
states. sold for around s2e per thou
sand board feet. The oak timber Of
all grades, bought by our army in the
Loire River Valley and in the upper
watershed Of the Marine, probably av-
eraged s36 per thousand board feet on
the stump. The silver fire and spruce
which we obtained in the Nosges and
Jura mountains. timber averaging &
or logs to the thousand feet. cost
about $50 per thousand standing in
the forests; but in buying selected pill
| ing we sometimes exceeded SEQ per
thousand board feet. And do not over
look the fact that these prices were
obtained for stumpage grown as thick
as the species and class OF product
| permit.
The lumber manufacturing indus
| try has grown up upon and adapted it
/ self TO a system OF forest manage
ment which permits but small cut
tings at any one place in any one
GpripS nf
rare when the well being and perm
anence of the forest are sacrificed to
the requirements of a manufacturing
enterprise-an exact opposite of the
| situation so common in the United
States where the manufacturer owns
the timber and has denuded one for
est region after another in order to
supply his large, stationary mills to
their maximum capacity. While this
relation is largely a result rather than
cause of the economic stat of pri-
vate forestry in France, it indicates
the industrial adjustments which will
become necessary in America as our
emphasis shifts from the supplying
| sawmills to growing timber.
The situation of France today is a
striking warning that the United
States can ill-afford the national loss
of idle land. Public agencies doubt
less must assume the greater part of
the immediate task of growing timber
on our idle cut-over Ian |. But pub
licly owned forests cannot 10 all of it
in the United States any more than in
France. Our national policy should
aim definitely and uneluivocaIIy at
tbs practice of forestry by priva te
owners as rapidly as that can be
brought about BY letter methods of
taxing timberland. by the co-opera :
tion and educational help OF state and
federal agencies. and by the recogni-
ton. on an equitable basis. OF the ob-
legations carried by fores1 owner