Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-11-04
When the Trees Give Out

!" HE next president of the United States,
regardless of who wins Tuesdays cleo
ton, will be publisher. This fact en-
courages the hope that he will exert his ut
most influence for the adoption of an ade-
Quate policy to restore and conserve the ma
tons vanishing forests. For whoever has
come to grips with the problem of print pa
per, the shortage and high prices of which
are attributable largely to a dearth of pulp
wood can but realize how imperative it is,
not only that reckless destruction of timber
lands be stopped. but also that far-reaching
national program of reforestation be inau-
gurated
The waste in this realm of Americas basic
resources has been so enormous and the i'm
poverishment toward which we are bound in
consequence is SO menacing that our every
material interest must suffer unless repara-
tory measures promptly taken. Not only
the cost of publishing books, newspapers
and magazines, but also that of building, fur
| niture- making and diver sorts of manufac-
! turing threatens to become almost prohibit
lively high if the decrease in the wood sup
| ply continues. Thus public education and
| those manifold social interests dependent
upon proper housing facilities are involved.
Consider, too, the undermining effect on
agriculture as decade after decade of de-
forestation goes on. In the Old World today
there are vast regions bare of nutritious herb
or grain or grass, arid spaces where no har-
vests brought forth and few flocks, or
none, are fed. Those very deserts once were
green and fruitful; but as the trees of their
environing hills and plains were cut away.
they lost natures great means Of conserving
moisture and rainfall. of controlling stream
flow and floods, Of keeping the land fertile
and productive. The same fate will befall
our own country, unless due steps are taken
to save and replenish the declining American
forests.
A glance into the official figures on that
decline discovers truly shocking state of
affairs. Our forests now are growing barely
one-fourth of the amount of timber consumed
annually by our wood-using industries. Three
1fths of the original timber is gone. At the
present rates of consumption and production
there will be virtually no timber left twenty
five years hence; and within fifteen years the
South's supply of virgin pine will be exhaust
ed. Already the East is having to pay some
six hundred million dollars a year in freight
rates on shipments Of lumber from remote
points. "In each of the old timber regions
writes Mr.. w. B. Greeley Chief Forester of
the United States, "the story is pretty much
the same. Abundant forests, period of
rapid cutting, uncontrolled fires, gradual
dimnution of timber supplies, and finally ex-
haustion and high prices for imported lum-
Der. Located first in New England, the GEN.
ter OF lumber production moved west to the
| Alleghanies. then to the Lake states then to
the great forests of pine in the South; and
now that the end Of the Southern pinery is
in sight. the movement to the forests of the
Pacific coast is under full Roadway. And
after that, what?"
Is it to be wondered. in the light of this
record, that lumber prices have climbed
and climbed. mounting three hundred per
cent in recent years? Is it to be wondered
that the cost of many articles into the pro-
duction of which wood largely enters, articles
of use and comfort and beauty, have reached,
or are approaching, levels disturbingly high /?
The most intimate and essential needs of our
intellectual and social. as well as material
selves-needs ranging from the houses we
dwell in to the books and papers we read
are concerned, and concerned critically.
There is but one way to relief and future
safety; and that lies in the adoption of a
forestry policy under which the Federal Gov
eminent and the states will work vigorously
together in conserving such timber resources
as are left and in restoring as far is feasible.
those which have been recklessly sacrificed
The Federal Government must take the initia-
tive and must bear large part of the respon-
sibility, because the problems to be dealt with
are, in their very nature, of national char
acter and range. It is greatly to be hoped,
therefore, that the next administration,
whether Democratic Republican, will make
this matter Of it's chief concerns, and
that every state will take up its special
forestry problems with the utmost effective
ness that an earnest purpose and scientific
Idirection can give.