A Brief History of Forestry.

The technical book literature, partly due, no doubt, to the overpowering publication facilities of the federal government, is still scanty, and good textbooks especially are still lacking in most branches.

A series of ephemeral popular books answered the demands of earlier days, but outside of Professor Henry S. Graves’ volumes on Forest Mensuration and lately on The Principles of Handling Woodlands, and a few minor aid books and lecture notes, there is as yet nothing of permanent value to be recorded. The writers’ own publication, Economics of Forestry, is intended less for foresters than students of political economy.

Three monumental works can be mentioned in the dendrological line, however, namely the 10th volume of the XII Census (1880) on the Forests of North America; Micheaux and Nuttall’s North American Silva in 5 volumes, 1865; and C. S. Sargent’s Silva of the United States, in 14 magnificent volumes, – three publications which can take rank with any similar literature anywhere.

INSULAR POSSESSIONS

The Spanish War, in 1898, brought to the United States new outlying territory, over 150,000 square miles, in three locations, the relationship as regards government varying in the three cases, namely Porto Rico, the Sandwich Islands, and the Philippine Islands, besides several smaller islands in the Pacific Ocean.

While the latter are only temporarily under control or tutelage of the United States, and are expected sooner or later to attain complete self government, Hawaii was annexed as a Territory in the same sense as all other Territories, the inhabitants having become citizens of the United States, while Porto Rico is a dependency with partial self-government, but its inhabitants do not enjoy citizenship in the States.

All these islands are located in the tropics and hence the composition of the forest is of tropical species.

Commercially, the forests of Porto Rico and of Hawaii are relatively of little value, but their protective value is paramount, and a conservative policy is needed in order to preserve the water supply for agricultural use (sugar plantations in Hawaii) and to prevent erosion.

For Porto Rico, a beginning of forest policy was made by setting aside, in 1903, the Luquillo Forest Reservation, some 20,000 acres in the Eastern mountainous part of the island, which is under direct control of the United States government. The rest of public lands and forests was placed under the Department of the Interior of the island.

In Hawaii, even before annexation, a movement on the part of the Sugar Planters Association was made in 1897, to induce the insular government to devise protective measures. The result was the appointment of a Committee who made a report in which the writer had a hand. But not until 1903 was a Board of Commissioners of Agriculture and Forestry established, a Superintendent of Forestry appointed, an organization of district foresters effected, and a number of forest reservations established. The principle of State forest was fully recognized by planning the gradual withdrawal of some 300,000 acres and by beginning the extension of forested area by plantations. In 1910, 23 reserves with an area of 575,000 acres had been made. Distribution of plant material and of advice to planters is also part of the policy. Annual Reports are issued which attest the good common sense in the administration.

In the Philippine Islands, a territory of 120,000 square miles, largely mountainous, not only the protective but the commercial value of the timberlands is considerable. The extent is variously estimated as covering between 40 and 50 million acres (50 % of total area), much of it virgin, and 16 million acres of it commercially valuable. Of the seven hundred odd species of trees, mostly heavy woods, composing the forest, some 160 are marketable at home and in China; yet almost fifty per cent. of the home consumption is imported from the States, owing to absence or inaccessibility of softwoods, and high cost due to excessive expense of present logging methods.

When the United States took charge of the islands it was found that the Spaniards had since 1863 a forestry service, manned by Spanish foresters, and in the lower ranks by Filipinos. To be sure, the activities of this forestry bureau went hardly beyond the collection of dues for timber licenses, which yielded little more than the cost of the service, although on paper excellent instructions were found elaborated.

It so happened that an officer of the American army, Captain George P. Ahern, had for some time given attention to forestry matters in the States, and he naturally was placed in charge of this bureau, in 1900. There were found to be around one million acres private and church property, the rest being considered State lands, but all private owners were required to register their holdings before being allowed to exercise their rights. A system of licenses for cutting timber, and of free use permits to the poor population was continued after Spanish models. Not only was an efficient administration gradually secured, but the technical side of dendrological and silvicultural knowledge was developed as rapidly as possible under the able administration of Captain Ahern, a continuously growing literature being the result.

1

The total forest area of the world is supposed to be 3,800 million acres.

2

The statistics in this book do not pretend to be more than approximations.

3

FELIX DAHN, Urgeschichte der germanischen und romanischen Völker, 1881.

4

The conception of such subdivision and the English nomenclature was independently first employed by the writer in his Report for 1887, as Chief of Forestry Division, when discussing planting plans for the prairies.

5

The necessarily brief statements which are made under this heading presuppose knowledge of the technical details to which they refer. In this short history it was possible only to sketch rapidly the development of the science in terms familiar to the professional man.

6

Die forstlichen Verhältnisse und Einrichtungen Bosniens und der Herzegovina, Ludwig Dimitz, Vienna, 1905, pp. 389. See Forestry Quarterly, Vol. III, p. 113.

7

In this statement we follow Clavé and other authors. Huffel takes exception to this conception of the origin of the shelterwood system, because he finds in some documents allusion to a modified application of the tire et aire method which might be construed into shelterwood regeneration. Indeed, Guiot (1770) and Varennes de Fenille (1790) describe methods of procedure which resemble somewhat this method of regeneration. But as the method of successive fellings was practised in Germany since 1720, and fully developed in all its detail by 1790 – Hartig formulating merely into rules what was long practised – it is likely that the French authors had heard of it. Moreover, in another place (vol. III, p. 271) Huffel says: “At this time (1821) one made several tentative regeneration cuttings by successive fellings according to the new formula – but without success.”

8

According to others (a reviewer of this volume), the difficulties which befell the institution were financial ones, “the too rapid conversion into timberforest reducing receipts, which the Minister of Finance resented.” Guyot’s history of the school, however, leaves little doubt of the above interpretation being correct. In the case of the State College at Cornell University, a later historian might similarly claim financial difficulties, the school having actually been closed for lack of appropriation; nevertheless political trickery was the real cause of this lack.

9

An idea of the supposed productive conditions may be gathered from the estimates which have been made, in 1898, for the State forests and the operations in these.

In the two northern provinces, in which the state owns nearly the entire forest area it is estimated that 8 cubic feet per acre would be available felling budget, but only 10 per cent. of this is actually cut and sold. Outside of this territory the available felling budget is calculated at 24 cubic feet per acre, but only 60 per cent. or 14 cubic feet is being cut. Altogether in 1898 there were cut in the State forests (somewhat over 300 million acres), 1,860 million cubic feet, say 6 cubic feet per acre or 40 per cent. of the estimated proper felling budget. The administration claims that three-fifth of the projected felling budget is saleable. In 1906, the budget was placed at 345 million cubic feet, but only 130 million were cut.

An estimate of the cut in the communal forests with 12 cubic feet, in the peasants holdings with 20 cubic feet, and in the private forests with 40 cubic feet per acre, brings the total for the country to round 10 billion cubic feet, worth round 100 million dollars for stumpage. It is assumed that 30 cubic feet should be the annual increment per acre, when it would appear that only 70 per cent. of the increment is cut.

The cut in the State forests was sold for 21 million dollars (1898), or at an average of less than 1c. per cubic foot. The highest price paid in the Vistula district was 2.5 cents, which scales down to 1c. in Siberia and to one-third cent. in the Caucasus. This refers to stumpage, nearly all sales being made on the stump to wood merchants by bids, the trees being marked in some parts, in others the area only being designated. The transportation is almost entirely by river. From 1883 to 1901 the net revenue from the State forests increased from 16 to 47 million dollars, while the expenditures dropped from 29 per cent. of the gross revenue to 18.4 per cent. The gross result is 46 cents per acre. In 1906, the returns were $27 million, and expenses $5 million.

10

Lacretelle, Rapport sur les forêts de la Macédoine, 1893.

11

Forstliche Rundschau, 1903.

12

Die forstwirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse Rumaniens, Von Mihail Vasilescu, 1891. Notice sur les forêts de Roumanie, in Statistica pâdurilor Statulin. 1903.

13

See Allgemeine Forst- und Jagdzeitung 1884, p. 183 ff., and 1887, p. 327 ff. for interesting details.

14

Berenger, Saggio storico della legislacione Veneta forestale, 1863. An excellent source.

15

For details see Fernow, in Garden and Forest, 1888, page 417.

16

As an instance, one statistician by mere mathematical figuring, namely, deducting the known crop and pasture area from the total land area would make the forest area of Quebec alone over 209 million acres. This includes the country north of the Height of Land, of 163 million acres, which by another mathematical calculation is made to be able to furnish over 65 billion feet of lumber, besides over 600 million cords of pulpwood and 370 million railroad ties; but under present conditions, owing to topography and character of the timber it cannot be utilized and its commercial value is altogether problematic. This calculation would leave as really or potentially available forest land south of the Height of Land 46 million acres in addition to over 5 million on farms. It is claimed that this forest area may still produce some 110 billion feet of coniferous and 1.5 billion feet of hardwoods, or 2500 feet to the acre.

The chief of the provincial Forest Service lately made the forest area of the province 131 million acres, including 2 million acres of waste land.

17

See Report of Canadian Forestry Convention, 1911.

18

See Forestry Quarterly, vol. IV, p. 14.