Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-06-07

w called Kaiser before he stole away
W from Germany and grew beard in
lieu of crown decided the other day that he
would sell as building lots certain strip Of
woodland on his Doom estate in Holland, the
parcel lying outside the forced enclosure
and, So being virtually useless to him. The
land was plated and staked, the notices
posted and the workmen about to begin cut
ting streets, wheL the watchful Dutch Gov
eminent interviewed with orders that not a
tree of the imperil1ed forest should be feIled.
What is an ex-emperor, or one full-scept-
cred, for the matter of that, compared with
an oak whose royalty the stars have lighted
for hundred years and whose rule Is by
rights truly divine? Whatever protest the
former monarch may have raised--and one
can imagine his testy gutterals-the trees re-
NAMED rustling in beauty undisturbed. There
ensued a conference between officials and
leading citizens of Doom, after which it was
announced t at the forest land for sale had
been bought by the municipality and would
be preserved in its natural charm as pub
lie treasure.
A story this is at once to shame and inspire
America. where negligence and vandalism to-
gether have needlessly stripped millions OF
acres of trees; where the consumption of
timber so far exceeds its production that at
the present rate the supply will be wholly ex-
hausted within the next four or five decades;
dangered by the ruthless ak at the heart Of
forest life. In Georgia and in most other
parts Of America William Hohenzollern could
have destroyed and defaced as he pleased, re-
CARELESS of the ills to the community and to
oncoming generations. He could have done
whatsoever he would with his own, in spite
of the loss to the commonweal and the wrong
against his neighbors.
Through long range of years, indeed, a
Hohenzollern spirit of greed has raided the
countrys forest resources, with hardly a
challenge. Abundant timber, reckless cut
ting, uncontrolled fires, dimirution and the4
exhaustion of supply--such has the story
been in region after region, as the center Of
lumber production moved from New England
to the Alleghenies, to the Lake States, to the
South, Ind as now swings menacinglv to-
ward the giant forests of the Pacific coast
When that bourne is reached, what then?
America must conserve her trees, must
call a halt upon their needless destruction
or she will pay direfully in the consequence
Already she is paying for the follies of the
past paying in the burdensome cost of build
ing material and the millionfold products of
wood, in the recurrence of soil-wastin'' floods,
in the embarrassment of industry and the
jeopardizing Of agriculture. Three-fifths of
our original timber supply Is gone. and each
year we take an additional twenty-six bill
lion cubic feet of wood from the forests.
while only some six billion are grown. This
depletion, says the Federal Forestry Bureau,
"has not resulted from use but from devasta-
ton. The kernel of the problem lies in the
enormous areas of forest lands which are
not producing the timber crops they should.
There are three hundred and twenty-six
million acres of cut-over lands bearing
saw timber; their condition ranges from
complete devastation through various stages
of partial restocking with trees of inferior
quality, to relatively limited areas which are
producing timber at or near their full
capacity"
The little that has been done suggests the
much that can be to atone for the fear
full wastes of the past and prevent stark
future. 1t is greatly to be hoped that before
the present year ends, Congress will have en-
acted an adequate bill for conserving and re-
storing forests. But the federal Govern
ment cannot grapple the problem effectually
without full-hearted cooperation from the
States. The General Assembly of Georgia
can do this Commonwealth no sounder service
than to provide for liberal co-working with
national plan