Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-11-03

states have forest fire protection systems
at ALL New York and Pennsylvania have
to import about 80 per cent of the tim
Der they use, because of the depletion OF
heir forests
A Forest Survey
The bill also provides for complete
survey of our forest resources. This is
one of it's most important provisions, in
the eyes of the foresters. No one knows
what we have in this line Or just where it
is. Equally important from the technical
point of view is the appropriation of mill
lion dollars a year for five years to be
spent in studying the utilization of wood,
and also the problems of forestry taxation
The forest products laboratory at Madison,
Wis, has already demonstrated the great
possibilities of new methods in the use of
wood. For example, it saved box manu-
facturers million dollars a year. 1t is
developing ways of seasoning wood in kilns
which promises to save millions. 1t has
demonstrated repeatedly that scientific re-
search in this line pays immediate and
large returns.
The taxation of forests is a matter re-
quiring such study 1t should be so ar
ranged, the foresters say, that the planting
and growing of timber crops will pay
The bill would also appropriate mill
lion year for five years to be used in
reforesting denuded lands in national for
ests. There are million and half acres
of burned over land in the national forests
that must be reseeded.
Ten million dollars is asked for buying
new areas to be put into national forest.
There are acres in the Alleghanies and
elsewhere in the east which can be pur-
chased by the government now at relative
ly low prices. They will cost more in the
future and lie timber UPON them will be
scarcer. National forests in the east should
have been acquired long ago.
This section of the bill should be of
special interest to the public because of
the great value and interest which the ma
tional forests in the west have developed
as Fairgrounds. In the east all of the
finest camping and fishing and hunting
country is privately owed, but in the west,
by reason of the national forests, poor
man can have a summer home in the best
mountain country in the world.
The measure would also increase the
size of the national forests by authorizing
the exchange of timber in national forests
for lands outside of them. This means that
an individual or company which owned
deforested timber land outside of, but
contiguous to, a national forest, could eX-
change it for so many board feet of tim
Der on national forests. This timber would
of course be cut under directions of the
forest service as not to injure the stand
Meanwhile the forest service could re-
forest the denuded lands acquired by this
method
The Smell bill seems to be regarded by
all authorities as a model conservation
measure. 1t calls for a good deal of money,
but money expended in conserving national
resources and in learning how to use them
is money that makes a return to the" tax
payer 1t makes the things he needs
cheaper and provides opportunity for en-
ployment and investment. 1t is the tax
money paid for armies and navies and the
machinery of government and in loans to
foreign powers that really leaves us for