The School Book of Forestry Part 6

During the four years before the war our imports of lumber from foreign countries amounted to about 1,200,000,000 board feet of lumber and logs. In 1918, imports exceeded exports by 100,000,000 board feet. In addition to this lumber, we also shipped in, largely from Canada, 1,370,000 cords of pulp wood, 596,000 tons of wood pulp, 516,000 tons of paper, and close to a billion shingles. Some of the material, such as wood pulp and paper, also came from Sweden, Norway, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

As a result of the war, European countries for several years can use 7,000,000,000 feet of lumber a year above their normal requirements. For housing construction, England needs 2,000,000,000 feet a year more than normally; France, 1,500,000,000 feet; Italy, 1,750,000,000 feet; Belgium and Spain 750,000,000 feet apiece. Even before the war, there was a great deficiency of timber in parts of Europe. It amounted to 16,000,000,000 board feet a year and was supplied by Russia, the United States, Canada, Sweden, Austria-Hungary and a few other countries of western Europe. If we can regulate cutting and replenish our forests as they deserve, there is a remarkable opportunity for us to build up a large and permanent export trade.

[Ill.u.s.tration: YOUNG WHITE PINE SEEDED FROM ADJOINING PINE TREES]

The Central and South American countries now have to depend on Canada, the United States and Sweden for most of their softwoods.

Unless they develop home forests by the practice of modern forestry, they will always be dependent on imported timber of this type. South Africa and Egypt are both heavy importers of lumber. Africa has large tropical forests but the timber is hard to get at and move. China produces but little lumber and needs much. She is developing into a heavy importing country. j.a.pan grows only about enough timber to supply her home needs.

Australia imports softwoods from the United States and Canada.

New Zealand is in the market for Douglas fir and hardwoods.

In the past, our export lumber business has been second only to that of Russia in total amount. The value of the timber that we exported was larger than that of Russia because much of our timber that was sent abroad consisted of the best grades of material grown in this country. In the future, we shall have to compete in the softwood export business with Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway and the various states of southeastern Europe which sell lumber. In the hardwood business, we have only a limited number of rivals. With the exception of a small section of eastern Europe, our hardwood forests are the finest in the Temperate Zone. We export hickory, black walnut, yellow poplar, white and red oak even to Russia and Sweden, countries that are our keenest rivals in the softwood export business.

Europe wants export lumber from our eastern states because the transportation costs on such material are low. She does not like to pay heavy costs of hauling timber from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic seaboard and then have it reshipped by water.

Our eastern forests are practically exhausted. Our supplies of export lumber except Douglas fir are declining. Most of the kinds of export timber that Europe wants we need right at home. We have only about 258,000,000,000 feet of southern yellow pine left, yet this material composes one-half of our annual shipments abroad.

We are cutting this material at the rate of 16,000,000,000 board feet a year. Some authorities believe that our reserves will last only sixteen years unless measures to protect them are put into effect at once. At the present rate of cutting long-leaf pine trees, our outputs of naval stores including turpentine and rosin are dwindling. We cannot afford to increase our export of southern yellow pine unless reforestation is started on all land suitable for that purpose. Our pine lands of the southern states must be restocked and made permanently productive. Then they could maintain the turpentine industry, provide all the lumber of this kind we need for home use, and supply a larger surplus for export.

Although our supplies of Douglas fir, western white pine, sugar pine and western yellow pine are still large, they will have to bear an extra burden when all the southern pine is gone. This indicates that the large supplies of these woods will not last as long as we would wish. To prevent overtaxing their production, it is essential that part of the load be pa.s.sed to the southern pine cut-over lands. By proper protection and renewal of our forests, we can increase our production of lumber and still have a permanent supply. The Forest Service estimates that by protecting our cut-over and waste lands from fire and practicing care to secure reproduction after logging on our remaining virgin forest land, we can produce annually at least 27,750,000,000 cubic feet of wood, including 70,000,000,000 board feet of sawtimber. Such a production would meet indefinitely the needs of our growing population, and still leave an amount of timber available for export.

Our hardwoods need protection as well as our softwoods. Ten per cent of our yearly cut of valuable white oak is shipped overseas.

In addition we annually waste much of our best oak in the preparation of split staves for export. At the present rate of cutting, the supply, it is said, will not last more than twenty-five years. We ship abroad about seven per cent. of our poplar lumber. Our supplies of this material will be exhausted in about twenty years if the present rate of cutting continues. We sell to foreign countries at least one-half of our cut of black walnut which will be exhausted in ten to twelve years unless present methods are reformed. Our supplies of hickory, ash and ba.s.swood will be used up in twenty to thirty years. We need all this hardwood lumber for future domestic purposes. However, the furniture factories of France, Spain and Italy are behind on orders. They need hardwood and much of our valuable hardwood timber is being shipped to Europe.

Experience has proved that correct systems of handling the private forests can not be secured by mere suggestions or education. No ordinary method of public cooperation has been worked out which produces the desired results. It is necessary that suitable measures be adopted to induce private owners to preserve and protect their woodlands. The timberlands must be protected against forest fires. Timber must be cut so as to aid natural reproduction of forest. Cut-over lands must be reforested. If such methods were practiced, and national, state and munic.i.p.al forests were established and extended, our lumber problem would largely solve itself. We not only should produce a large permanent supply of timber for domestic use, but also should have great reserves available for export. Under such conditions, the United States would become the greatest supply source in the world for lumber.

CHAPTER XV

WHY THE LUMBERMAN SHOULD PRACTICE FORESTRY

The lumber industry of this country can aid reforestation by practicing better methods. It can harvest its annual crop of timber without injuring the future production of the forests. It can limit forest fires by leaving the woods in a safe condition after it has removed the timber. Some private timber owners who make a living out of cutting lumber, have even reached the stage where they are planting trees. They are coming to appreciate the need for replacing trees that they cut down, in order that new growth may develop to furnish future timber crops.

The trouble in this country has been that the lumbermen have harvested the crop of the forests in the shortest possible time instead of spreading out the work over a long period. Most of our privately owned forests have been temporarily ruined by practices of this sort. The aim of the ordinary lumberman is to fell the trees and reduce them to lumber with the least labor possible.

He does not exercise special care as to how the tree is cut down.

He pays little attention to the protection of young trees and new growth. He cuts the tree to fall in the direction that best serves his purpose, no matter whether this means that the forest giant will crush and seriously cripple many young trees. He wastes large parts of the trunk in cutting. He leaves the tops and chips and branches scattered over the ground to dry out. They develop into a fire trap.

As generally followed, the ordinary method of lumbering is destructive of the forests. It ravages the future production of the timberlands. It pays no heed to the young growth of the forest. It does not provide for the proper growth and development of the future forest. Our vast stretches of desolate and deserted cut-over lands are silent witnesses to the ruin which has been worked by the practice of destructive lumbering. Fortunately, a change for the better is now developing. With the last of our timberland riches in sight on the Pacific Coast, the lumbering industry is coming to see that it must prepare for the future.

Consequently, operators are handling the woods better than ever before. They now are trying to increase both the production and permanent value of the remaining forests. They aim to harvest the tree yield more thoroughly and to extend their cuttings over many years. They appreciate that it is necessary to protect and preserve the forest at the same time that profitable tree crops are being removed. They see the need for saving and increasing young growth and for protecting the woodlands against fire. If only these methods of forestry had been observed from the time the early settlers felled the first trees, not only would our forests be producing at present all the lumber we could use, but also the United States would be the greatest lumber-exporting country in the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHAT SOME KINDS OF TIMBER CUTTING DO TO A FOREST]

It will never be possible to stop timber cutting entirely in this country, nor would it be desirable to do so. The demands for building material, fuel, wood pulp and the like are too great to permit of such a condition. The Nation would suffer if all forest cutting was suspended. There is a vital need, however, of perpetuating our remaining forests. Wasteful lumbering practices should be stopped. Only trees that are ready for harvest should be felled. They should be cut under conditions which will protect the best interests and production of the timberlands. As a cla.s.s, our lumbermen are no more selfish or greedy than men in many other branches of business. They have worked under peculiar conditions in the United States. Our population was small as compared with our vast forest resources. Conditions imposed in France and Germany, where the population is so dense that more conservative systems of lumbering are generally practiced, were not always applicable in this country. Furthermore, our lumbermen have known little about scientific forestry. This science is comparatively new in America. All our forestry schools are still in the early stages of their development. As lumbermen learn more about the value of modern forestry they gradually are coming to practice its principles.

The early lumbermen often made mistakes in estimating the timber yields of the forests. They also neglected to provide for the future production of the woodlands after the virgin timber was removed. Those who followed in their steps have learned by these errors what mistakes to avoid. Our lumbermen lead the world in skill and ingenuity. They have worked out most efficient methods of felling and logging the trees. Many foreign countries have long practiced forestry and lumbering, yet their lumbermen cannot compete with the Americans when it comes to a matter of ingenuity in the woods. American woods and methods of logging are peculiar. They would no more fit under European forest conditions than would foreign systems be suitable in this country. American lumbermen are slowly coming to devise and follow a combination method which includes all the good points of foreign forestry revised to apply to our conditions.

We can keep our remaining forests alive and piece out their production over a long period if we practice conservation methods generally throughout the country. Our remaining forests can be lumbered according to the rules of practical forestry without great expense to the owners. In the long run, they will realize much larger returns from handling the woods in this way. This work of saving the forests should begin at once. It should be practiced in every state. Our cut-over and idle lands should be put to work. Our forest lands should be handled just like fertile farming lands that produce big crops. The farmer does not attempt to take all the fertility out of the land in the harvest of one b.u.mper crop. He handles the field so that it will produce profitable crops every season. He fertilizes the soil and tills it so as to add to its productive power. Similarly, our forests should be worked so that they will yield successive crops of lumber year after year.

Lumbermen who own forests from which they desire to harvest a timber crop should first of all survey the woods, or have some experienced forester do this work, to decide on what trees should be cut and the best methods of logging to follow. The trees to be cut should be selected carefully and marked. The owner should determine how best to protect the young and standing timber during lumbering. He should decide on what plantings he will make to replace the trees that are cut. He should survey and estimate the future yield of the forest. He should study the young trees and decide about when they will be ripe to cut and what they will yield. From this information, he can determine his future income from the forest and the best ways of handling the woodlands.

Under present conditions in this country, only those trees should be cut from our forests which are mature and ready for the ax.

This means that the harvest must be made under conditions where there are enough young trees to take the place of the full-grown trees that are removed. Cutting is best done during the winter when the trees are dormant. If the cutting is performed during the spring or summer, the bark, twigs and leaves of the surrounding young growth may be seriously damaged by the falling trees. The trees should be cut as low to the ground as is practicable, as high stumps waste valuable timber. Care should be taken so that they will not break or split in falling. Trees should be dropped so that they will not crush young seedlings and sapling growth as they fall. It is no more difficult or costly to throw a tree so that it will not injure young trees than it is to drop it anywhere without regard for the future of the forest.

Directly after cutting, the fallen timber should be trimmed so as to remove branches that are crushing down any young growth or seedling. In some forests the young growth is so thick that it is impossible to throw trees without falling them on some of these baby trees which will spring back into place again if the heavy branches are removed at once. The top of the tree should be trimmed so that it will lie close to the ground. Under such conditions it will rot rapidly and be less of a fire menace. The dry tops of trees which lodge above the ground are most dangerous sources of fire as they burn easily and rapidly.

The lumbermen can also aid the future development of the forests by using care in skidding and hauling the logs to the yard or mill. Care should be exercised in the logging operations not to tear or damage the bark of trunks of standing timber. If possible, only the trees of unimportant timber species should be cut for making corduroy roads in the forests. This will be a saving of valuable material.

In lumbering operations as practiced in this country, the logs are usually moved to the sawmills on sleds or by means of logging railroads. If streams are near by, the logs are run into the water and floated to the mill. If the current is not swift enough, special dams are built. Then when enough logs are gathered for the drive, the dam is opened and the captive waters flood away rapidly and carry the logs to the mill. On larger streams and rivers, the logs are often fastened together in rafts. Expert log drivers who ride on the tipping, rolling logs in the raging river, guide the logs on these drives.

On arrival at the sawmill, the logs are reduced to lumber. Many different kinds of saws are used in this work. One of the most efficient is the circular saw which performs rapid work. It is so wide in bite, however, that it wastes much wood in sawdust. For example, in cutting four boards of one-inch lumber, an ordinary circular saw wastes enough material to make a fifth board, because it cuts an opening that is one-quarter of an inch in width. Band saws, although they do not work at such high speed, are replacing circular saws in many mills because they are less wasteful of lumber. Although sawmills try to prevent waste of wood by converting slabs and short pieces into laths and shingles, large amounts of refuse, such as sawdust, slabs and edgings, are burned each season. As a rule, only about one-third of the tree is finally used for construction purposes, the balance being wasted in one way or another.

CHAPTER XVI

WHY THE FARMER SHOULD PRACTICE FORESTRY

The tree crop is a profitable crop for the average farmer to grow. Notwithstanding the comparatively sure and easy incomes which result from the farm woodlands that are well managed, farmers as a cla.s.s neglect their timber. Not infrequently they sell their timber on the stump at low rates through ignorance of the real market value of the wood. In other cases, they do not care for their woodlands properly. They cut without regard to future growth. They do not pile the slashings and hence expose the timber tracts to fire dangers. They convert young trees into hewed crossties which would yield twice as great a return if allowed to grow for four or five years longer and then be cut as lumber.

Just to show how a small tract of trees will grow into money if allowed to mature, the case of a three-acre side-hill pasture in New England is interesting. Forty-four years ago the farmer who owned this waste land dug up fourteen hundred seedling pines which were growing in a clump and set them out on the sidehill.

Twenty years later the farmer died. His widow sold the three acres of young pine for $300. Fifteen years later the woodlot again changed hands for a consideration of $1,000, a lumber company buying it. Today, this small body of pine woods contains 90,000 board feet of lumber worth at least $1,500 on the stump.

The farmer who set out the trees devoted about $35 worth of land and labor to the miniature forest. Within a generation this expenditure has grown into a valuable a.s.set which yielded a return of $34.09 a year on the investment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON POOR SOIL TREES SUCH AS THESE ARE MORE PROFITABLE THAN FARM CROPS ]

A New York farmer who plays square with his woodland realizes a continuous profit of $1 a day from a 115-acre timber tract. The annual growth of this well-managed farm forest is .65 cords of wood per acre, equivalent to 75 cords of wood--mostly tulip poplar--a year. The farmer's profit amounts to $4.68 a cord, or a total of $364.50 from the entire timber tract. Over in New Hampshire, an a.s.sociate sold a two-acre stand of white pine--this was before the inflated war prices were in force--for $2,000 on the stump. The total cut of this farm forest amounted to 254 cords equivalent to 170,000 board feet of lumber. This was an average of about 85,000 feet an acre. The trees were between eighty and eighty-five years old when felled. This indicates an annual growth on each acre of about 1,000 feet of lumber. The gross returns from the sale of the woodland crops amounted to $12.20 an acre a year. These, of course, are not average instances.

Farmers should prize their woodlands because they provide building material for fences and farm outbuildings as well as for general repairs. The farm woodland also supplies fuel for the farm house. Any surplus materials can be sold in the form of standing timber, sawlogs, posts, poles, crossties, pulpwood, blocks or bolts. The farm forest also serves as a good windbreak for the farm buildings. It supplies shelter for the livestock during stormy weather and protects the soil against erosion.

During slack times, it provides profitable work for the farm hands.

There are approximately one-fifth of a billion acres of farm woodlands in the United States. In the eastern United States there are about 169,000,000 acres of farmland forests. If these woodlands could be joined together in a solid strip one hundred miles wide, they would reach from New York to San Francisco. They would amount to an area almost eight times as large as the combined forests of France which furnished the bulk of the timber used by the Allies during the World War.

In the North, the farm woodlands compose two-fifths of all the forests. Altogether there are approximately 53,000,000 acres of farm woodlots which yield a gross income of about $162,000,000 annually to their owners. Surveys show that in the New England States more than 65 per cent. of the forested land is on farms, while in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa from 80 to 100 per cent. of the timber tracts are on corn belt farms. Conditions in the South also emphasize the importance of farm woods, as in this region there are more than 125,000,000 acres which yield an income of about $150,000,000 a year. In fact the woodlands on the farms compose about 50 per cent. of all the forest lands south of the Mason-Dixon line. In Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Oklahoma, over 60 per cent. of all the forest land is on farms.

The Government says timber raising is very profitable in the Eastern States because there is plenty of cheap land which is not suitable for farming, while the rainfall is abundant and favors rapid tree growth. Furthermore, there are many large cities which use enormous supplies of lumber. The transportation facilities, both rail and water, are excellent. This section is a long distance from the last of the virgin forests of the Pacific Coast country.

The farms that reported at the last census sold an average of about $82 worth of tree crop products a year. New York, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania each sold over $15,000,000 worth of lumber and other forest products from their farm woodlots during a single season. In 1918 the report showed that the farms of the country burn up about 78,000,000 cords of firewood annually, equal to approximately 11.5 cords of fuel a farm. The Southern States burn more wood than the colder Northern States. In North Carolina each farm consumes eighteen cords of fuel annually, while the farms of South Carolina and Arkansas used seventeen cords apiece, and those of Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Kentucky from fifteen to sixteen cords. Even under these conditions of extensive cordwood use, our farm woodlots are producing only about one-third to one-half of the wood supplies which they could grow if they were properly managed.

The farmer who appreciates the importance of caring for his home forests is always interested in knowing how much timber will grow on an acre during a period of twelve months. The Government reports that where the farm woodlots are fully stocked with trees and well-cared for, an acre of hardwoods will produce from one-half to one cord of wood--a cord of wood is equal to about 500 board feet of lumber. A pine forest will produce from one to two cords of wood an acre. The growth is greater in the warmer southern climate than it is in the North where the growing season is much shorter. Expert foresters say that posts and crossties can be grown in from ten to thirty years and that most of the rapid growing trees will make saw timber in between twenty and forty years.

After the farm woodland is logged, a new stand of young trees will develop from seeds or sprouts from the stumps. Farmers find that it is profitable to harrow the ground in the cut-over woodlands to aid natural reproduction, or to turn hogs into the timber tract to rustle a living as these animals aid in scattering the seed under favorable circ.u.mstances. It is also noteworthy that the most vigorous sprouts come from the clean, well-cut stumps from which the trees were cut during the late fall, winter or early spring before the sap begins to flow. The top of each stump should be cut slanting so that it will readily shed water. The trees that reproduce by sprouts include the oak, hickory, ba.s.swood, chestnut, gum, cottonwood, willows and young short-leaf and pitch pines.

In order that the farm woodland may be kept in the best of productive condition, the farmer should remove for firewood the trees adapted only for that purpose. Usually, removing these trees improves the growth of the remaining trees by giving them better chances to develop. Trees should be cut whose growth has been stunted because trees of more rapid growth crowded them out.

Diseased trees or those that have been seriously injured by insects should be felled. In sections exposed to chestnut blight or gypsy moth infection, it is advisable to remove the chestnut and birch trees before they are damaged seriously. It is wise management to cut the fire-scarred trees as well as those that are crooked, large-crowned and short-boled, as they will not make good lumber. The removal of these undesirable trees improves the forest by providing more growing s.p.a.ce for the st.u.r.dy, healthy trees. Sound dead trees as well as the slow-growing trees that crowd the fast growing varieties should be cut. In addition, where such less valuable trees as the beech, birch, black oak, jack oak or black gum are crowding valuable trees like the sugar maples, white or short-leaf pines, yellow poplar or white oak, the former species should be chopped down. These cutting operations should be done with the least possible damage to the living and young trees. The "weed trees" should be cut down, just as the weeds are hoed out of a field of corn, in order that the surviving trees may make better growth.