Evening star., 1925-04-18

County are enthusiastic in adorning
their school grounds with trees.
Under the Clarke -McNary act of
Congress, the National Government
co-operates with State governments in
supplying trees for planting, vet
throughout the entire United States
not more than 10000 acres are plant
ed annually. Japan plants more than
$4,000 acres. We have $1,000, 900 de-
nuded acres Of former forest land. By
proclamation of President Coolidge the
entire week, April 27 to May 8, will
be set apart as American Forest week
for the purpose of emphasizing the
national importance of public interest
in forestry.
The Nation is using timber four
times as fest as 1t is producing it.
The world is q spendthrift in that re-
gard, but no nation can compare with
the United States in timber profiigacy.
Every year we destroy by forest fires
one-f1fth as much timber acreage as
we plant. Incendiarism, careless
| camp fire management and cigar
smoking in the woods are chief causes
of fires.
Yet one-tenth of the people depend
upon timber and it's manufacture into
lumber for their livelihood, and all de-
pend upon the cost of lumber for the
economy of home building. Even the
daily papers would be impossible but
for the pulp from which paper is
made. 1t takes a forest area three
by four miles every Sunday to supply
the paper for our newspapers-10
times as many acres per year for our
Sunday papers alone as are replanted
in forests. How long will it be be-
| fore we overdraw such an account?
y x ); X
Since the automobile came into use
outdoor recreation has revived The
| Forest Service is accused by certain
utilitarian interests with having given
| too much attention to building roads
| and establishing camping sites in ns-
| tional forests, but Col. w. B. Greeley
chief of United States Forest Service.
| points out that no such roads have
| been built for recreation but that they
serve the public for general purposes,
| including the mail service. Besides,
| they are not constructed out of funds
| set apart for forestry, but by direction
| of Congress with specific appropria-
| tions for specific roads.
1t is the policy of Congress to en-
courage outdoor recreation. and to
| that end an act was passed in 1897
authorizing the uses of national for
| ests for camping. In 1915 an act au-
| thoriZed permits for the erection Of
| Summer homes in national forests
| without charge for the use Of the land
and for the last five or six years Con-
gress has appropriated at each session
| $780, 900 for the erection of sanitary
| facilities and other improvements upon
public camping grounds. There are
today $500 forest camp sites in the
country. No other one influence for
the benefit Of the public is Of greater
value, say officials, than that of out
door living, especially in the exhil-
arating environment of a mountain
| forest Some 5000 permits for Sum-
| mer cottages upon national forest land
| have been issued.
| x x X X
| The tasks Of the Forest Service in
| clude fire protection. In spite of the
employment of 1000 rangers per-
manently and some 1900 temporary
watchers during the dry season, there
are from 5000 to 5000 destructive
| fires annually. Without such watch
| full guardianship the forests would be
wiped out in a decade. Other destruc-
tive agencies are the insect pests and
disease. Even with the most scientific
means of defense it seems sometimes
| impossible to check the ravages of dis
ease and insects. The same is true Of
| diseases of the human and the animal,
but certainly no one would discontinue
the fight simply because perfect VIC
| tory is postponed.
Copyright, 1925, BY Paul v. Collins,