The Mena weekly star., 1921-07-21
PLAN TO RESTORE
 !. FORESTS IN SOUTH
Southern Forestry Conference Will Recognize Great Opportunities for Wealth and National Service That
 Exist in Timberlands.
tBy International News serv,ce.,


 Washington, July 18.-In reforesta- tion the South has one of it's biggest opportunities for wealth and national service, said Charles Lathrop Pack, president of the American Forestry Association today, in statement on the importance of the Third Southern Forestry Conference, which opens in Atlanta Wednesday. Pack has called a forestry conference for Washington in September, and big representation from the South is expected.
 The South needs reforestation bad ly, Pack points out Power experts employed in developing the power from some of the streams in the South, testified before the Agricul- tural Committee of the House of Representative some time ago that the capacity of certain reservoirs was so much reduced that in few years only the flow of the rivers would be available for power. A report from the Geological Survey on the amount of silt carried by some of these rivers states that the Susquehanna carries to the sea, annually, 240,000 tons; the Roanoke, 3,000,000 tons; the Alabama, 3 ,039 ,000 tons; the Savannah 1 100000 and the Tennessee, 11,000,000 tons. It is but reasonable to assume that at least half of this wastage of soil ma terial is preventable.
 Reclamation is of two classes lands reclaimed for cultivation and those for forests. As to the need of forests a few figures will show the importance of the work the Southern Forestry Conference can do. Pack said:
 "When the state of Florida gets two carloads of forest products a month from the states of Washing ton and Oregon the freight bill adds much to the cost of lumber. When the state of Minnesota gets 3,615 carloads per month from these states the freight is also a '.isiderable item The figures show the normal freight shipments of forest products from Oregon and Washington to be 32,340 carloads per month, and of this amount 21,270 carloads were forest products and adds to the cost of lum- Der which an adequate forest policy would result in growing in or near the state ii which 1t w.ls used, thereby
  increasing the supply.
 "As to transportation of lumber, the fact that the center of the lumber industry is nearing the Pacific coast means higher freight rates as well as bulky material taking up the car space of other commodities.
 "We must have national forest policy in this country. It is a simple business proposition that would put the idle land nearer the centers of population to work growing timber and thereby reducing the cost of con- struction. The Shell bill has the backing of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, the associa- ton of Wood Using Industries, and hundreds of similar organizations, as well as the American Forestry Asso- citation. To the South comes a great opportunity. All success to the con- | ference in Atlanta next Wednesday," With the transportation condition in regard to forest products as out lined, Pack is opposed to any tariff on lumber. He believes that, with the country in vital need of at least a million homes and quite as many if not more farm buildings for agricul- tural purposes, now is the time to build, because it is certain that prices of lumber will increase as the years 20 by to such an extent that unless adeuuate housing is now provided 1t will be seriously retarded by grow ing casts