THE FORESTS OF FRANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17464, 5 November 1918, Page 8

THE FORESTS OF FRANCE

By Lieutbnaot F. J. Slsath. The French are a nation of small holders. No fewer than six million of them have a share in owning the soil of the fatherland; and multiple ownership spells intensified cultivation. The last ear of wheat, the last beetroot or parsnip, has to be forced out of tha last yard ol ground, that the owner of that square yard and his kindred may live. The same also would sppear true of the forests of France. Be they large or small, one characteristic thoy have in common—compactness. Their sombre green bulks appear in the distanoe, as clearly outlined from the surrounding i courtry as though a draughtsman had drawn their limits, and a painter splashed in the colour between his lines. Near at hand the cultivated ground can be seen sweeping right up to their margin, with never a sentinel tree or outpost clump abutting. But as if to make up for tho lack, their rax-ks axe packed close as a Roman phalanx; and the great weight of t mber which their solid formations repre sented has been worth more than many Roman phalanxes to the Allied caiffie. For the last four years the axe of tho lumberman has rung in their midst—Canadian lumbermen, _ native foresters, and woodsmen from Britain, organised in defi- . woodcutting units; and the product of their labours has gone, in one way and another, straight to tho battle line. *our years' constant work means a huge amount of tree-felling. But the thrifty instinots of the French landowners, leading them to cultivate their timber-bearing land to its maximum, has enabled the forests of r ranee to stand the strain. The wood is put to a variety of uses. One cannot make a tour of the trenches without learning what these are. Earthworks expected to endure for any length of time must be supported by solid baulks ; ot timber and intervening spars, and if the comfort of their inhabitants is to be secured the trench bottoms must be provided with raisad floors to keep the feet of passers-by above the ever-present drainage. French thoroughness goes one step further, and sees that wood unsuitable for conversion _ into heavy timber p?rforms a useful service. Not a twig lopped from the trunks of fallen trees is wasted. Wattle making absorbs them all, and the wattles go to the reveting of trenches, especiallv m wet locabties. These wattles are made in frame sections formed by weaving the twigs round stouter staves, with two to four main stakes, their ends nointed and protruding a foot or so beneath tlio frame's lower edge, by means of which tho sections can be fixed securely into the earth in an upright position against the trench walls, to prevsnt disintegrating soil from falling- down and undermining the parent mass. Another variety is the cylinder or bottomless basket, the modern representative ol the gabion, familiar to students of sie"-e warfare, by driving six or seven stakes into the earth to hold them in position during the process of manufacture, and then weaving round the twigs. These are filled with earth «nd used as a central core for a breastwork, anchoring the mass most securely; and their utility can easily be understood when it is realised that in some districts of France the soil is almost as mobile as an Irish bog, and that tho whole lengths of trenches have been known to disappear through the sodden walls simply moving together. This wattle making is a very favourite fatigue of soldiers in France, more especially when a whole company is engaged and ono platoon competes against another. Often the fatigue partakes of the nature of a joy ride, the men going off on motor-buses —London omnibuses generally—to some great French forest, carrying a day's rations with them, as merry as a group of schoolboys going off on a picnic. Any time the way of the traveller leads him through wooded country, he will see old navy-blue coated French Territorials, using their aged strength to plait wattles for the use of the younger men up the line. One other thing the French forests have provided which trenchmen could ill have done without —charcoal, the only solid fuel which ; can be used with perfect safety in the firing-line. Wood and coal, and to a lesser degree coke, give off smoke when set alight, and smoke is almost certain to draw the fire of the hostile artillery. But charcoal is smokeless fuel, and is therefore used in great abundance for cooking and heating purposes. France was always a great charcoal consuming country, but never before have the burners been so busy; and the result of their labours has been that the fighting men have been more warmly housed and bettor fed than in any previous war. There are gaps in those great French forests now, and land is bare that once was thickly wooded. As the nation has given of its best and bravest, so the woods nave given of their tallest and most proud. But steps are being ta.ken to repopulate those woodlands; and in years to come the gaps will disappear; while the primeval giants which the woodmen spared, towering above f-fcn trees, will form lasting testimony to what Francp gave in tho days of the great war.