America Takes Up Forestry

by Lawrence Rathbun IN THE BEGINNING America was a forest, and the finest for the use of man to be found in the world. Her trees furnished the first raw materials for permanent settlement; fence posts and rails, rough logs, and planks. By 1631 a little mill at the mouth of the Piscataqua River in New Hampshire manufactured and exported lumber; and very shortly there developed a great trade in pipe staves for liquor casks. In the same year, on July 4th, at Medford, Massachusetts, the ship “Blessing of the Bay” took the water. The future of a prosperous New England enterprise, based on an abundant natural resource of easy access and the ingenuity and ability to fabricate that material into products of world demand, beckoned to the settlers. Sheer abundance of trees, however, had its drawbacks, for if land were to be used or grazing, and crops were to be planted, the forest, leaf, branch, and root, must first be removed at great labor. The pioneers concerned otherwise than with the exploitation and trade of forest products became accustomed to regard the forests as a most troublesome growth. The relatively high value of one part of the forest and the absolute nuisance of another considerable portion induced hasty exploitation and even destruction. But realization on the part of the Town Fathers that forest fires and wanton waste wiped out potential lumber values inspired protective legislation as early as 1626 in the Plymouth Colony. A further check existed in existed in the technical status of the wild lands themselves. The colonists had, to be sure, received grants of very considerable areas from the Crown which alienated not merely the land-but everything in and on it. On the other hand, the splendid forests which offered the most excellent sites for shipyards along the shores of innumerable navigable inlets and rivers, were legally on Crown land. The very ancient principle, running far back into feudal times, that the forest on Crown land was Crown forest, and as such not to be exploited for private gain, had never been abrogated. Yet individualism rampant in the new breed that was growing up in America, was obsessed with two practical bits of “hokum,” one, that the forest was inexhaustible, and two, that Public Timber was anybody’s timber. These two ideas, erroneous as they were, survived by their practicability and convenience to plague our country for generations. By 1691. England discovered that it was becoming exceedingly difficult to obtain first rate masts and other ship-building material at the ports of New England, not, be it noted, because the forests were exhausted as a whole, but because the more accessible trees, Crown as well as privately owned, had been utilized. A clause of the new “province” charter, granted in that year by William and Mary, reaffirmed the ancient principle of the Crown Forest, and reserved, for the use of the Royal Navy; all trees more than 25 inches in diameter 12 inches above the ground on all lands in the province not thereto£ ore granted to a private holder. Future grants might be made of land, but they were not to carry any property in the choicest part of the forest. Furthermore, that no one might plead ignorance of a tree’s status, surveyors were appointed whose duty it was to mark the reserved trees with the Crown Symbol, —the Broad Arrow. This principle of reservation, though legally unimpeachable and strategically sound for the purpose of the Royal Navy, did not and could not please the colonists who were still struggling with “nature in the raw.” Expansion was proceeding gradually westward, and the forest cover persisted with its negative value of overwhelming abundance. Only when a tree stood ready at hand for a particular use did it have positive value. The Broad Arrow reserved exactly those trees which by proximity to the water’s edge were most valuable, and hence it became a symbol in the category of irritants, along with tea and taxation, between the Colonies and the Crown. It is interesting to note that when at last our Granite Staters in the Revolution faced the British at Bunker Hill, they fought under a banner which bore the utilization of which there had arisen so much disagreement. The successful conclusion of the War of the Revolution justified in the popular mind the American viewpoint on all the questions which had led up to the open struggle with the Mother Country. To those Americans intimately connected with the forest and its utilization Independence but proclaimed the rightness of pioneer thought, that Broad Arrow ownership was merely a technical nuisance, and that the inexhaustible public forest was for anybody who could find profitable use for it. But by a little irony of history, the Massachusetts Act of 1783 reaffirmed the essential provisions of the Broad Arrow, merely substituting the Legislature for the Crown as the title holder. For nearly the first two hundred years of American history then, the ownership and use of public lands and the forests drifted on the tide of public opinion without clarification or purpose other than immediate expediency. As the Atlantic seaboard began to see the wisdom of a conservative forest policy, the South and West were in their turn opening up vast new forests, and the people of those regions had points of view similar to those of the early settlers of New England. It was not until the passage of the Forest Reserve Act in 1891 that the first important conservation measure in the history of our national forest policy, came into being, reviving once more the old King’s Forest theory by the creation of national forests. The Federal Government was strong enough to enforce its control, but only to discover once again the perpetual problem of government, that of a proper balance between individual and national interests. The acquisition of western forests met with serious opposition since it collided with established private interests, and the complaint that the development of the West was endangered by public ownership repeated the same old refrain. But the temper of the times was ripe for aggressive action in the interest of the public, and the Act of 1891 was the signal of a great forward surge by the forces of conservation. This national program accumulated momentum and through it public attention was directed toward a policy of reservation, not only for Federal purposes but also for State purposes. When governmental units became forest landholders, there naturally arose a demand for men trained in Forestry. So it was that in the beginning of 1898 an era of professional forest schools was inaugurated. Forestry Societies and Forestry Journals came into being as the conservation issue became enlivened with enthusiasm and goaded by healthful opposition. It is interesting to note also that the connection between land ownership and forestry practice was not fully correlated by the Washington Government until 1905. Up to that time the forest reserves were administered by the Department of Interior, while the Forestry Bureau was a subordinate division of the Department of Agriculture. In 1905 the transference of the forest reserves to the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture brought Forestry into its own. As President Roosevelt himself declared, the object of Forestry was not to “lock up” the forests, but “to consider how best to combine use with preservation.” Under the able guidance of Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief Forester, the United States Forest Service was organized and quickly acquired a splendid reputation as an administrative agency. Its duties were primarily concerned with the care and development of millions of acres of National Forests. A secondary, but no less important, duty was that of gathering information and advising public opinion as to the policies it should support. Mere sentiment for conservation did not clarify the technical details nor discover the ultimate purpose for the management of the vast domain whose purchase it championed. The need for Forestry has been amply demonstrated by the experience of older and long civilized countries throughout the world. China and Greece, on the one hand, are two sufferers from the lack of proper forest regrowth; France and Germany, on the other hand, have, through conscious effort, conserved their forests, despite long use by large populations. Our own investigators have compiled convincing evidence that the time for action has long since arrived. The most concrete indication that the forests need attention is the fact that the annual cut exceeds the annual regrowth by about four times. Superficially, it appears that the gross area of forest cover is increasing, especially in those states where farm land is in process of abandonment; but upon analysis, the potential yield is not too promising. The kind of trees, not merely the number, is vital to the wood-using industry. Beyond the question of volume and quality is the availability of the supply, and the ease with which it may be harvested. The cost of transportation over great distances or difficult logging conditions may preclude the utilization of fine stands of timber. It may be equally uneconomic to harvest splendid individual trees close at hand if they are too scattered in occurrence and weed trees predominate. Raw material must be grown to fit into mass production machinery if the full economies of that system are to be realized. The goal of forest management in timber production is to grow crops of desirable trees which will yield the heaviest return in the shortest time in selected locations. In practice this is but improving upon the natural forest to meet specific human wants. America, after more than three hundred years, is still partially blind to the fact that her once abundant forests may yet fail her in one or more vitally important functions. Complete exhaustion is quite impossible. Failure to a degree is already a reality. The cost of wood, the depression notwithstanding, is higher than necessary for the simple reason that vast areas of conveniently located forest lands are not yielding the proper tree crops. Excess farm land, formerly cleared of trees and now abandoned to destruction by erosion, will in the future grow neither farm nor forest crops. Drastic cutting over large areas has for years contributed to the cause of costly floods. The peripatetic lumber industry has created villages and towns, only to wipe them out when the forest resource was “cut out.” Entire counties have gone bankrupt as the lumber industry has been forced to move through its own method of operation. Lack of Forestry principles has been a major cause in the economic instability of many regions. Perhaps an inability to cope with this situation rather than a blindness to it stays our hand, for there are clear signs of a desire to act. Unfortunately, there is little incentive to invest in timber production, and yet that is the only practical field for individual enterprise on the three-quarters of the nation’s forest which are in private ownership. Despite the fact that an eventual shortage of timber is indicated, the indefiniteness of its arrival and the hazards which may be encountered in the meantime are potent deterrents. The individual landowner is not to be condemned for his lack of initiative because the complexity of the factors, both natural and economic, all but prohibit reliable financial calculations. Taxation alone may absorb the full expectation va1ue of a long-term enterprise. The present break down in land ownership, which has thrown large parts of many states into tax delinquency, may eventuate in greatly increasing the area of public forests. Since the expected revenues from those forests cannot cover the expenses of administration and the equivalent of taxes on private land, a forest owner may find himself taxed to help support his competitor, the public! However, despite all the bogies, real and imaginary, there are an estimated three million acres of private forest land under sound management, seeking through Forestry to develop a perpetual yield of timber for commercial purposes. Then, too, the use of forests for purposes of recreation has in the past been accepted as a free by-product. As civilization progresses and leisure of the masses, whether it be of the earned or forced variety, becomes more evident, there arises an opportunity for a new enterprise, that of organized recreational facilities within the forest. Yellowstone National Park and roadside picnic grounds represent the extremes in this type of special use. Now beyond the forms of direct consumption for which the forest or its component parts may be utilized lie values outside the range of casual notice, but of wide importance in determining the environmental conditions under which we live. Observations over a long period of time in many parts of the world, establish with certainty that forests influence climate, not markedly but measurably. Both air and soil temperature are modified to an extent which may be sufficient at critical periods to be of immense importance. Rainfall is also affected to some degree, especially in mountainous regions. All vegetation, and particularly heavy tree growth, acts as a conserver of water, regulator of streamflow and runoff, by breaking the force of rain, retarding the melting snow, and keeping the ground porous. Forestless regions subjected to uncontrolled water action frequently become deserts useless to man. So, accepting the fact that the forest yields to society far more than timber, itis not beyond the realm of possibility that the intangible values, from which little or no revenue accrue to the private owner, actually outweigh the values which commercial exploitation may realize. Perhaps America has opened both eyes. At any rate circumstances have created a situation which will probably serve to demonstrate two things: first, the relative social value of private and public forest management; and second, the extent to which the public should help the private owner so that he may manage his forest with financial success, and yet conserve those values to which national welfare may well lay claim. A splendid foundation was built during the last half-century for just such a stroke of legislation as President Roosevelt inaugurated for the establishment of the National Civilian Conservation Corps. One hundred and sixty million acres of National Forests and several million more acres of State owned land lay awaiting more intensive development. Born of an emergency, organized in haste, the C.C.C quickly established itself in high esteem, and the American public continues to support it with hearty approval. Half a million youths are now the frontline attack in the campaign of conservation for use. The officers of the Corps are planning a long-term land use program of the broadest type. The field projects are executed for correlated purposes. Extensive forest culture will yield not only timber but better watershed protection, recreational facilities, and climatic control. Thousands of miles of road will aid in general fire protection and will give access to recreational areas deep within the forest, as well as providing for transportation of forest products. Dams will check water run-off and will form lakes for future fishing. Fire, disease, and insect control will protect the entire forest environment, and erosion control will save the very soil itself. Paradoxically enough, the projects of the land use plans are not being done per se, but rather for the employment of the youth of the country, or for the purpose of sociological conservation. The gloomy prospect of a large though shifting permanent population of unemployed young men is certainly one we all wish to avoid. From time immemorial nations have ignored their youth as a source of economic wealth in peace time, but have been quick to enroll them for purposes of war. Is it beyond possibility that a so-called civilized nation can today refrain from exhausting itself in war, and conscript its army of youth for the equally thrilling and more intelligent purpose of fighting nature for the sake of a more abundant future? The early settlers of New England carved their homes and livelihood out of the wilderness in a battle against nature. Today America turns back to the wild lands, there to discover a depleted reservoir into which she can pour her energy, not merely for a future harvest but for immediate and continuing benefits. Lawrance Rathbun, A. B., M. F. August 1, 1935.