REPLANTING FRANCE.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15046, 14 April 1919, Page 2

REPLANTING FRANCE.

AMERICAN AID.

Millions of plants and seeds iare now being collected by r the American,Fores-' try Association to be- sent to France to aid in the "work' of reforestation. The State of Pennsylvania has contributed 100 pounds of white pine seed and fifty pounds of Ebiiglas fir seed. Minnesota, has sent 200 pounds of w;hite pine seed.' But much.more is needed." Franc© can' use 700 pounds of these seeds. - j The request for American seed came from the French Forest Service to' the United States Forest Service, but, while .the American organisation was able to send large quantities' of plants and seeds that it happened to have on hand, it had no appropriation with which to buy additional Beed for France. So it turned the request over to the American Forestry Association, a private organisation of great wealth'and influence. Perciyal S. Ridsdale, secretary of the association is now in France,- investigating forestry conditions, with a view to placing the assistance of his association where it will do the most good. The condition of the. French forests to-day is so bad that it has enlisted the interest of foresters all over the world. More than 1,250,000 acres of French forests were actually demolished by the war, while over 60 per cent of the re-

maining merchantable timber had to be cut in the cause of defence. This wouldbe a heavy blow to any .nation, but to ; France, which had worked orer and. • cherished her forests for the past fifty years, it is nothing short of a national calamity. ' In ■ wood is a common material. There, is plenty of it, and only recently has it'ever been suggested that- , the supply was not inexhaustible. Only , recently has a forest cdnservation propaganda been launched. But in France, < devastated by many wars, wood was not so Ple"£ ful > even"at "the outbreak of "*&• T/1^ nation',had to import onethjrd of its lumber. Hence tKe strictest -kind of conservation was both preached and practised," and every effort was made to increase the forested land. In a hundred years France succeeded in creating forests where formerly there were only sandy wastes, in planting trees on barren mountain slopes and' in establishing a national timber resource that surprised the neighßourine nations. % to It may be imagined, therefore, that after nourishing its woodland so vigilantly, France tossed it in the arena ot war only with great,pain and self sacrifice. [ . . . .