Checking the Waste: A Study in Conservation

by Mary Huston Gregory

Trees supply us with food and medicine, and greatest of all their direct uses, they furnish lumber for all kinds of manufacturing.

We can not think of life without the comforts and conveniences that we get from wood; but interior China affords a striking example of what it means for a nation to have a very small supply. There is no wood for manufacturing and the natives search the hillsides for even the tiniest shrubs to burn and even for grass scratched from the soil. Once this part of China was a great forest region, but century by century the forests have been used, not rapidly, as in this country, for China is not a great industrial nation, but surely, until there is hardly a twig left.

China is not the only nation that has suffered in this way. Many of the ancient peoples have entirely passed away; and the destruction of their forests, as we have seen in the previous chapter, was the first cause leading to their extinction.

Denmark was originally almost covered with forests. These were cut down for fuel, for lumber, and to make way for agriculture. For a long time there was no attempt to restore them, and now a large area, once productive, has become a sandy desert. In the same way, large parts of Austria and Italy have become valueless because the growing forests were cut down.

In France the forests at the head-waters of the Rhone and the Seine were cut down and fierce floods began to pour down the valleys each year, bringing destruction to property and crops all along their way. But France has long ago learned the lesson of forestry, and as soon as the danger was seen, the mountain sides were replanted with trees, and since then conditions have been gradually changing for the better.

France has had another experience in forestry that has taught her what can be done to save her waste lands. Near the coast were great sand-dunes. The winds drove them each year farther inland, and the sand was gradually driving out the vineyards and farm crops. In 1793 the planting of forests on these dunes was begun. Of 350,000 acres, 275,000 have been planted in valuable pine forests. More than half of these belong to private owners and there is no record of their value, but the portion belonging to the government has yielded a large income above all expenses, and is worth $10,000,000 as land; and this was not only valueless but was a menace to the surrounding country. In the interior of France a sandy marsh covering 2,000,000 acres has been changed into a profitable forest valued at $100,000,000.

A hundred years ago all the eastern part of the United States and the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific coast region were covered with thick forests hundreds and hundreds of miles in extent. Evergreens—the pines, hemlocks, cedars and spruces—grew near the coast in great abundance, while farther inland were found the most magnificent hardwood forests in the world.

Unfortunately, the first needs of the early settlers required them to cut down these mighty forests. The soil, which was very fertile, could not, of course, be used for farming purposes until the land was cleared, and so this was the first necessity.

The wood was used to build the cabins, to make the rude furniture, the wagons and ox-carts, and for fuel, but this disposed of only a small amount of the wood that came from the clearing of a farm. No man could give it to his neighbor when all had more than they could use, and there was no market for its sale. The trees were burned in large quantities to clear the land for the planting of crops.

Wood was of the greatest value to the first settlers, but it was also the greatest hindrance to their making homes, so they took no care whatever of what they could not use. It was burned or left on the ground to decay. As towns sprang up, there began to be a demand for lumber for houses, for furniture, for vehicles and for fuel from those who had no trees of their own. This made a market for the best grades of lumber at a low price, but almost every farmer would give away trees of the best hardwood to any person who would cut and haul them away.