The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1930-02-27
FOREST PRESERVATION IS
DISCUSSED AT CIVIC CLUB
(Continued from Page Onel

numbering of the past was that no
provisions were made for forest re-
newal. A forest is more than col
lection of trees. 1t is not merely a
wood storehouse. It. is a wood fac
tory, a water reservoir, a fish hatch
cry, a game refuge and a wild flower
preserve. All these in one the forest
truly is.
"The houses in which we live are
the gift of trees, if not in whole, at
least in large part. Another gift is
paper, which carries the printed word
into our homes and our schools. These
two products, home and paper, under
lie the standards of American life to-
day, because they stand for home life
and intellectual progress. When the
forests disappear the cost of home
building goes up and the standards of
living decline. When the cost of paper
rises opportunities to advance intel
lectually becomes lessened.
Gone of the most important ques-
lions before great industry is the
production Of paper on which news
papers are printed. Newsprint is a
forest product. 1t is made from pulp
wood, requiring sixteen acres of sprue
trees to make the paper for one Sun
day edition of a metropolitan news
paper. The paper manufacturers, so
experts say, make in four years paper
which if placed in strip the width of
newspaper would be long enough to
reach to the sun and back. You have
seen the cost Of print paper go up.
This is due to the increased cost of
pulp wood because of the diminish
ing supply. These are essential to our
playtime and our worktime.
eve have built from the harvest
of abundant forests provided by ma
ture, but are we going to leave our
children land made treeless by US?
This question of maintaining our for
ests isn't some far-off question inter-
esting only to lumbermen and the for
estry service, but tits a problem that
concerns the whole people. But we
must also learn that conservation does
not mean no use of trees, but wise
use. In forestry that destruction is
vital. The forest that grows old, de-
Gays and dies is not serving mankind,
1t is like field of wheat that passes
its harvest time and dying serves no
purpose.
"Wise use at all times is the goal
of forestry. We are rapidly in
creasing nation. An increase in pop
ulation means an increasing use for
wood. Our only way out of the prob
lem of supplying a continually in
creasing demand that is being made
upon a continually decreasing forest
is to put every available acre of land
to growing trees. It is claimed that
at the rate we are using lumber that
by 1850 we may have an area of idle
land larger than New York, Pennsyl-
vania, New Jersey, Delaware, Mary
land, Virginia and all the Northeast
ern States. But they also say that
right here is where the women's clubs
can do good work. With more and
more women thinking about these
things, higher and higher mounts pub
lie opinion that surely is going to
bring a national forest policy.
"When a bill was introduced in
New York in regard to forestry pro-
lection, an attorney who is supporting
the bill, said that our recent Missis-
sippi floods were due in large meas
ure to the lack of forest growth about
it's headwaters. Unless we can do
something, he said, farms that once
were fertile will become useless owing
to the lowering of the water level be-
meath the surface.
can interesting story comes to us
from France. America is accused of
causing the floods in Paris and the
destruction of her farm crops in some
. sections of that country. Why, you
may ask. The charges made are that
because America has cut most of its
hardwood trees it must go far afeld
for such lumber. They have gone to
France we are told, and bought from
the French private land owners.
Forests are to our streams what
fthe storage battery is to the wire.
Take away the battery and the wire is
dead. Rain falls and the drops are
broken up by the leaves into mist.
This settles on the soft bed of dead
leaves under the trees. These leaves,
like cloth, have the power to hold
water, and the moisture reaches the
soil beneath. This is called the min
eral soil because it is made by the
gradual wearing of rocks of many
kinds which took more years than we
can count.
"This water held BY the leaves
works slowly down through the cracks
and crevices. There it meets other
little streams and joins other rivu-
lets and in time forms the streams
and rivers we have underground. They
become our springs which feed the
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