OUR
NATIONAL FORESTS
WORK OF THE UNITED STATES FOREST
SERVICE ON THE NATIONAL FORESTS
RICHARD H. DOUAI BOERKER, M.S.F., Ph.D.
Arboriculturist, Department of Parks, City of New York.
With the United States Forest Service from 1910 to 1917.
1918
All rights reserved
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published, September, 1918
WHOM should this humble volume
seek to honor but the father and
mother whose unselfish devotion made
possible both my education and my
profession?
The highest type of scientific writing is that which setsforth useful scientific facts in language which is interestingand easily understood by the millions who read.
L. A. Mann.
PREFACE
Forestry is a vast subject. It has to do withfarm and forest, soil and climate, man and beast.It affects hill and valley, mountain and plain. Itinfluences the life of cities, states, and nations.It deals not only with the manifold problems ofgrowing timber and forest by-products, such asforage, naval stores, tanbark, and maple sugar, butit is intimately related to the navigability of riversand harbors, the flow of streams, the erosion of hillsides,the destruction of fertile farm lands, thedevastation wrought by floods, the game and birdsof the forest, the public health, and national prosperity.
The practice of forestry has, therefore, becomean important part in the household economy ofcivilized nations. Every nation has learned,through the misuse of its forest resources, that forestdestruction is followed by timber famines,floods, and erosion. Mills and factories dependingupon a regular stream flow must close down, or use[viii]other means for securing their power, which usuallyare more expensive. Floods, besides doing enormousdamage, cover fertile bottom-lands withgravel, bowlders, and débris, which ruins theselands beyond redemption. The birds, fish, andgame, which dwell in the forests, disappear withthem. Springs dry up and a luxurious, well-wateredcountry becomes a veritable desert. Inshort, the disappearance of the forests means thedisappearance of everything in c