of commission by boring holes in the cables, through which the water enters, rendering the wire connections useless until the place is found and repaired.

"Continued experiments with chemical substances applied to finished and crude forest products show that very few of the many substances that have been tried are effective, and, with crude products, none of them is so economical as simple and inexpensive management in logging and manufacture which will render the conditions of the bark and the wood unfavorable to attack.

"Continued studies of termite or white ant damage to the woodwork of buildings has led to the discovery that one of the most destructive species can not live if deprived of moisture in ground or foundation timbers; thus it is possible to prevent serious damage.

"Investigations of shade-tree insects have continued, and there has been much correspondence about insects of this class.

"The recent appearance of the so-called seventeen-year locust, or periodical cicada, has given an opportunity for detailed study of certain points, and motion pictures have been made."

The Eastern National Forests.

HE National Forest Reservation Commission has issued a brochure entitled "Progress of Purchase of Eastern National Forests' well illustrated with plates and maps.

The Act of March 1, 1911, which was designed primarily for affording protection to the headwaters of navigable streams, seeks its results through the maintenance of forests. It thus offers a means of furthering measures for maintaining a supply of eastern timber. Under its provisions there had been acquired to January 1, 1920, a total of 1,841,934 acres of spruce and hardwood forests in the White Mountains, and the Southern Appalachian regions have been, or are, in process of being acquired, out of more than 50,000,000 acres of this class of timber-land. All of these purchases are rough lands in the mountainous sections of the country.

The original Weeks bill carried an appropriation of $11,000,000, and to this $600,000 was added for the fiscal year 1920. The Commission has authorized the expenditure of all but $300,000.

The 1,841,934 acres are being purchased at an average price of $5.26 per acre, and as the merchantable timber has increased in value, the National Forests will not only serve in their protective function, but be an excellent investment financially.

Some of the tracts have merchantable timber

on them. Many purchases, however, through neglect by prior owners have been burned and their earning capacity greatly reduced, or are cut-over lands, or lands in young timber which can yield no immediate returns. The cutting of timber by the government on acquired land is conservative, less timber being sold each year than the estimated annual replacement by growth. The receipts for the fiscal year 1919 on the then acquired area of 1,347,660 acres was $71,942.

There have been twenty-one purchase areas located in nine States in the important hardwood and spruce regions of the White Mountains and Southern Appalachians. On seventeen of these, purchases have been authorized. These pur

chase areas have an area of nearly 7,000,000 acres, including some interior farming land.

A further appropriation of the kind which has been recommended, covering a period of years, would be expended primarily in acquiring lands on areas which have already been located so as to secure consolidation and more efficient administration, and with the further object of extending the policy of new units located particularly in States in which no purchase areas have as yet been established.

The Forest Reservation Commission gives the total area of hardwood and spruce lands in the mountains of the Eastern States, which is unsuited for agricultural purposes and should be maintained in productive forests, in excess of 30,000,000 acres.

The purchases not only promote navigation. through the maintenance of equitable stream flow, and through reducing deposits of silt, but aid in securing a supply of hardwoods and of spruce for pulp and for airplane construction.

A collateral advantage is that enjoyed by towns in securing their supply of domestic water from watersheds in whole or in part owned by the government and lying within the forests. There are seventeen municipalities, including four large hotels which now make use of this privilege, while twenty-nine municipalities and five hotels secure their supply from lands which have not been acquired, but are located within the purchase areas. Government control assures sanitation of such areas without interfering with their use for timber production. These forests can also be used for recreational purposes, while certain restricted areas have already been designated as game preserves.

Detailed descriptions and maps are given of seventeen purchase areas.

With enormous forests of rapidly growing species suitable for pulp, water power, and tidewater shipment of manufactured products, Alaska will undoubtedly become one of the principal paper sources of the United States. A substantial development of the paper industry in this wonderful region, combined with the intelligent reforestation of pulp lands in the older regions, should settle forever the question of a paper shortage in the United States. Within the last ten years, the Forest Service has brought about the sale of 420,000,000 feet of sawtimber in the National Forests of Alaska. A number of areas suitable for pulp operations have been cruised and prepared for sale; and during the coming summer the survey of pulpwoods will be extended in order that other desirable tracts may be brought to the attention of manufacturers. Promising developments in paper manufacture, in fact, are now pending. The Forest Service has also investigated stream flow in co-operation with the Geological Survey, and has collected data of value to engineers in planning power developments.

To encourage a paper industry in Alaska, National Forest timber will be offered for large installations under mutually favorable terms. The department is prepared to contract sufficient stumpage to supply paper mills for thirty years. The timber will be paid for from month to month as it is cut, obviating the necessity for large investments in raw material.

The initial prices, based upon current timber values in Alaska, are sufficiently low to make the cost of pulpwood stumpage a relatively negligible factor to the manufacturer. On several areas which have been appraised, the spruce timber is priced at 50 cents a cord and the hemlock timber at 25 cents. These rates will apply during the first five years following the installation of the plant. Thereafter prices will be readjusted at five-year intervals if current timber values in Alaska warrant, but with equitable provisions regarding maximum rates which, in no event, will be exceeded during the earlier portion of the contract.

At the present juncture, the opening up of the forests of Alaska for the development of the paper industry will supply one of the most critical economic needs of the United States to the profit and service of both Alaska and the people of the several States without in any way sacrificing or interfering with the purposes for which the forests were established.

N

The Bamboo Plant.

EBUCHADNEZZAR has attracted some centuries of curiosity as a grazing human, but he deserves no credit for the unique quality of his exploit. The Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department of Agriculture, asserts that the natives of the Far East were eating grass in the form of edible bamboo sprouts long before. And now the tender sprout of the bamboo, prepared for the table in the same manner as asparagus, is declared to be a delicious spring vegetable for American tables.

It probably is news to most Americans to learn that there are several bamboo plantations of undoubted value already established in Georgia and Louisiana. Bamboo, according to scientists, is not a tree, but a giant grass. It grows like asparagus, the new plants forming from the original roots. The bamboo sprout shoots up at the incredible rate of a foot a day, and when mature has a stem 4 inches in diameter and 50 feet high. It requires no cultivation. The grown timber has an infinite number of industrial uses owing to the light composition of the wood and its long, tough fibres. It can be used for barrel hoops, ladders, trellises, etc.

It is a valuable crop. In 1902 the leading Japanese growers estimated an annual profit of $50 an acre from the sale of the edible sprouts and grown timber. Present conditions would warrant a much larger profit. An acre of bamboo will produce about 1,000 edible shoots each spring and will continue the production for 40 or 50 years without being renewed.

More general introduction is urged for the South Atlantic, Gulf and Southern Pacific States where conditions for bamboo culture are favorable.

New Jersey has nearly 2,000,000 acres of woodland, most of it in a degraded condition because of repeated forest fires, wasteful logging, neglect of owners, and abuse by the public. As determined by soil surveys and careful studies nearly three-quarters of this area is unfit for any profitable use other than growing timber. If this is made into productive, profitable forests, the value can be rapidly increased from the present total of $6,000,000 to over $20,000,000. Instead of furnishing less than one-twentieth of the lumber used within the State as at present, New Jersey's woodlands are capable of supplying a large part of the ordinary lumber and wood products required by its people.

14989

United States Timber Depletion.

TH

HAT the high cost of lumber and newsprint is due in no small measure to the using up of the forests east of the Great Plains was stated by the Secretary of Agriculture in forwarding to the Senate a report by the Forest Service on timber depletion, called for by resolution of Senator Capper.

"Scarcity of timber in the Eastern States is by no means the only cause of high prices. Forest products have shared in the wave of inflated values. An auction lumber market would have resulted in any event from the sudden release of pent-up demands for housing and industrial material at a time when lumber stocks were short and the saw mills unable to respond rapidly with increased production. But the facts remain that three-fifths of the original timber of the United States is gone; that we are using timber four times as fast as we are growing it; and that nearly two-thirds of the timber left is west of the Great Plains where its availability to the average user is greatly lessened."

The Forest Service estimates that 2,215 billion feet of timber is left in the United States. Nevertheless, the bulk of its population and industries are handicapped by the exhaustion of the forest regions which formerly supplied them. New England has one-eighth of her original timber. New York manufactures about one-tenth of the lumber required by her own population. The present lumber cut of Pennsylvania is less than the amount consumed in the Pittsburgh district alone. The States on the Great Lakes, which for thirty years supplied most of the eastern and central regions with softwood lumber, now cut less than one-eighth of their former production, and are themselves importing softwoods from the Pacific Coast. The cut of Southern pine, the standard lumber of the East for the last fifteen years, is now falling off. Within a decade it will not exceed the requirements of the South itself.

The Secretary of Agriculture points out that the freight bill on the average thousand feet of lumber used in the United States is rising steadily. The falling lumber cut in the East and its concentration in a few regions increases the effect of car shortage, labor troubles, and bad weather upon lumber stocks and prices. It marks the disappearance of effective competition between groups of sawmills in different manufacturing regions, which has been the great leveler of the lumber market.

in the

grades of softwood lumber retailed Middle West for $15.00 to $20.00 per thousand feet prior to 1900 when the material was cut in the Lake States, and for $25 to $35 per thousand feet somewhat later when Southern pine supplied this market. Now, with Western lumber taking over the territory, the price level has advanced to $80 or $85. Practically every softwood market in the United States reflects these distinct and advancing price levels as the result of local timber depletion. Lack of competition contributes to the increase. Instances are cited where the consumer of certain lumber grades in the Ohio Valley has paid as much as $50 per thousand board feet more than the consumer of the same grades on the West Coast, over and above all transportation charges.

"Other existing evidences of timber depletion are the scarcity and excessive cost of timber products of high quality, particularly of hardwoods, which already is critical for many American industries, the shrinking production of turpentine and rosin in the Southern pineries, and the necessity of importing two-thirds of the newsprint which the United States requires.

"Timber depletion has not resulted from the use of our forests, but from their devastation. There are 463,000,000 acres of forest land of all classes in the United States, including burned, culled, and cut-over. Of this amount 81,000,000 acres is an unproductive waste. Upon enormous additional areas the growth is so small in amount or of such inferior character that its economic value is negligible. These forest lands will produce the timber required by the country if they are kept at work full time growing trees. But unless timber growth takes the place of devastation from forest fires and destructive methods of cutting, our consumption of lumber must drop to the level of European countries where wood is an imported luxury."

The Secretary advises the Senate that there has been no marked change in the concentration of timber ownership during the last ten years. About 250 large owners control half of the private timber in the United States. The speculative holding of timber has been checked to some extent, some of the principal properties have been decreased, and the present tendency is toward manufacturing operations. He reports that no information has been obtained to justify a conclusion that a lumber monopoly of any great scale exists.

a very large number of individual timber owners and sawmills, the larger interests are securing a more dominant place in lumber manufacture in the West. As timber depletion goes on these large owners will more closely control the remaining supplies, particularly the old growth of high quality. This situation points toward a natural monopoly of the high grade softwood timber.

Secretary Meredith endorses the position taken by the Forest Service that the fundamental need arising from this situation is to grow trees. He strongly urges a national policy of reforestation. The most effective attack both upon excessive prices and possible monopolies of lumber or newsprint is the production of timber as a steady crop on non-agricultural lands in all parts of the country. The immediate steps which the Secretary recommends to Congress are an enlargement of the National Forests on a wide scale and legislation which will enable the Forest Service to cooperate effectively with the States in stopping forest fires and growing timber on State and private land. At the same time a comprehensive survey of the forest resources of the United States should be made, concerning such matters as the quantities of timber available for each form of use, the classification of land as between the production of timber and farm crops, and the timber growing resources and timber needs of each region.

Notes.

A strict Federal embargo upon all Christmas trees and evergreens from the districts in the New England States, that are infested with gypsy moth, has been urged by Secretary Fred Rasmussen, of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. Pennsylvania has maintained an embargo against trees from the infected area for some years, but despite these precautions, trees have been shipped into the State, as it is practically impossible to examine every tree reaching the Commonwealth, the snow and ice with which the foliage is covered making it next to impossible to find the nests of moth eggs.

Secretary Rasmussen has asked the Federal Horticultural Board at Washington, that the Federal embargo be declared. Similar action has been taken by commissioners of agriculture in a number of other States.

The gypsy moth was first imported into Boston, and the cities within the infested zone are large enough to use up all Christmas trees and evergreens cut in the infested area if the Federal embargo is declared.

Bows of Yew for Modern Archers.

N the Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington a quantity of yew has been sold to be used in making bows. The yew has long been known as the best of all bow woods. Famous English archers would have no other. Richard III ordered bowyers to make four bows of witchhazel, ash, or elm to every one of yew, in order that the supply of this valued wood might be preserved. This is said to be one of the earliest forest regulations in England. The staves from which bows were made in those early days were seasoned for three years before being made into bows and the bows were not used for two years after being completed.

The American yew is botanically very similar to the European yew. One of the three species found in the United States grows only in Florida and is a small tree. Another is a shrub growing in the north Atlantic region, while the third occurs in the forests of the Pacific coast. It is the latter that grows in the Snoqualmie National Forest. When mature it usually is from 20 to 30 feet high and from 6 to 12 inches in diameter.

On account of its elasticity and strength the Indians of the Northwest utilized the wood of the yew for their bows and often for canoe paddles. Yew wood is also well adapted to carving and numerous attractive articles can be made from it. Not only does the grain of the wood make it possible to carve attractive designs, but the combination of red bark, white sapwood, and rose red heartwood make especially pleasing effects possible.

That the lumberman should not carry all of the blame for the condition of forest depletion to which the country is awakening, is the text of an editorial in "Lumber" (St. Louis), commenting on the recent appointment of Dean Hugh P. Baker, of the New York State College of Forestry, to the secretaryship of the American Paper and Pulp, Association. "Little, if anything, worth while has been said or written about the part the consumers or users of lumber have played in this now national game of forest depletion-a game that is developing in some quarters into a crime. But 'the worm is turning.' The responsibility for forest depletion is being slowly but surely placed where it properly belongs, and the forestry problem is becoming an issue in the solution of which almost every industry of the country must take a part-and a responsible part."