Part 4 (2/2)
They travel in couples; two men to a 35-foot boat, which is provided with coers live on the boat all the ti the sum and the nights short, and theydistances between points of work On such runs one man steers the boat and watches the forested shoreline for three or four hours at a tie off In this way, they are able to ht
The other big tiach National Forest It is a sass Forest Its trees are not so large and the stand of tiass Experts estimate that it contains 7,000,000,000 board feet of lumber Western hemlock predominates
There is also much spruce, poplar and birch Stands of 40,000 to 50,000 feet of lumber an acre are not unusual In the future, the luach National Forest will play an important part in the industrial life of Alaska Even now, it is used by the fishi+ng, ricultural interests On account of its great distance fro time before lumber froass National Forest runs 60 per cent
western hemlock and 20 per cent Sitka spruce The other 20 per cent consists of western red cedar, yellow cypress, lodge-pole pine, cottonwood and white fir The yellow cypress is very valuable for cabinetAll these species except the cedar are suitable for pulp h, considerable of the lumber used in Alaska for box shooks in the canneries and in building work is imported from the United States The local residents do not think their native tiood as that which they import
Alaska will probably develop into one of the principal paper sources of the United States Our National Forests in Alaska contain approximately 100,000,000 cords of timber suitable for paper manufacture Experts report that these forests could produce 2,000,000 cords of pulpwood annually for centuries without depletion About 6,000,000 tons of pulpwood annually are now required to keep us supplied with enough paper The Tongass National Forest could easily supply one-third of this amount indefinitely This forest is also rich in water power It would take more than 250,000 horses to produce as much power as that which the streams and rivers of southern Alaska supply
The western he The spruce trees are generally sound and of good quality
The he subject to decay at the butts This often causes fluted trunks The butt logs from such trees usually are inferior This defect in the hemlock reduces its market value to about one-half that of the spruce for paperSo these species of pulpwood and report that they s are floated down to the paper s Special knives res into pieces twelve inches long and six inches thick These sticks then pass into a powerful grinding machine which tears them into small chips The chips are cooked in special steamers until they are soft The softened chips are beaten to pieces in large vats until they form a pasty pulp The pulp is spread over an endless belt of woven wire cloth of small mesh The water runs off and leaves a sheet of wet pulp which then is run between a large number of heated and polished steel cylinders which press and dry the pulp into sheets of paper
Finally, it is wound into large rolls ready for commercial use
If a pulp and paper industry is built up in Alaska, it will be of great benefit to that northern country It will increase the population by creating a de operations bya home market for their products It will improve transportation and develop all kinds of business
Altogether 420,000,000 feet of lumber have been cut and sold from the national forests of Alaska in the past ten years This s and shi+ngle bolts All this lumber has been used in Alaska and none of it has been exported Much of the timber was cut so that it would fall alether in rafts and towed to the saws contained more than 1,500,000 feet of lumber It is not unusual for spruce trees in Alaska to attain a diameter of from six to nine feet and to contain 10,000 or 15,000 feet of lumber
Southeastern Alaska has many deep-water harbors which are open the year round Practically all the timber in that section is controlled by the Governass National Forest This means that this important crop will be handled properly No waste ofwill be perood of the forest justifies such work
CHAPTER XI
PROGRESS IN STATE FORESTRY
The rapid depletion and threatened exhaustion of the timber supply in the more thickly populated sections of the East has pro toward the conservation of their timber resources As far back as 1880, a forestry commission was appointed in New Hampshi+re to formulate a forest policy for the State Vermont took similar action two years later, folloithin the next few years by many of the northeastern and lake states
These coathering reliable information upon which to report, with recommendations, for the adoption of a state forest policy As a result of the inquiries, forestry departments were established in a number of states The report of the New York Coislation, in 1885, creating a forestry depart for the acquisition of state forests
Liberal appropriations were made from time to time for this purpose, until now the state forests ele state
New York state forests were created, especially, for the protection of the Adirondack and Catskill regions as great carounds, and not for timber production The people of the state were so fearful that through political ht fall into the hands of the timber exploiters, that a constitutional a the cutting of green tie areas of state forest land, it is unproductive so far as furnishi+ng timber supplies to the state is concerned It is held distinctly for the recreation it affords to campers and hunters, and contains many faan in 1887, when a co in the establishment of a Commission of Forestry in 1895 Two years later, an act was passed providing for the purchase of state forests At the present time, Pennsylvania has 1,250,000 acres of state forest land Unlike those of New York, Pennsylvania forests were acquired and are h the recreational uses are not overlooked
The large areas of state-owned lands in the Lake States suitable, , enabled this section to create extensive state forests without the necessity of purchase as was the case in New York and Pennsylvania As a result, Wisconsin has nearly 400,000 acres of state forest land, Minnesota, about 330,000, and Michigan, about 200,000 acres South Dakota, with a relatively small area of forest land, has set aside 80,000 acres for state forest A nu state forest lands, notably, New Hampshi+re, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, and Indiana, each with sreatly increased within the next few years under the develop in line with this forward movement There are but 4,237,587 acres in state forests in the United States This is only 1-1/2 per cent of the cut-over and denuded land in the country which is useful only for tree production The lack of funds preventsmore extensively in this work Many states set aside only a few thousand a year; others, that are ressive and realize the need of forestry extension, spend annually from one hundred thousand to five hundred thousand dollars Foresters are, generally, agreed that as much as 25 per cent of the forest land of every state should be publicly owned for producing large sized tirow, and which the private oould not be interested in producing
National, state, or communal forests must supply it All of these combined comprise a very small part of the forests of er areas overnuard our future timber supplies
Not less than thirty-two states are actually engaged in state forestry work Many of theanized forestry depart large areas of state forests, are devoted largely to the care and protection of these lands In other states having no state forests, the work is largely educational in character
The ress in forestry has beenforestry departments lay especial enized that only by protecting the forests fro timber crops In fact, in most cases, the prevention of fire in itself is sufficient to insure re-growth and productive forests Pennsylvania is spending 500,000 annually in protecting her forests from fire The cooperation of the Federal Government, under a provision of the Weeks Lahich appropriates small sums of money for forest protection, provided the state will appropriate an equal or greater ae the establishment of systems of forest protection in many of the states
[Illustration: SOWING FOREST SEED IN AN EFFORT TO GROW A NEW FOREST]
The enormous areas of denuded, or waste land in the various states, coain productive only by forest planting, present another big problem in state forestry Many of the states have established state forestry nurseries for the growing of tree seedlings to plant up these lands The trees are either given away, or sold at cost,a live interest and growing senti waste lands