FRENCH FORESTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12082, 10 August 1917, Page 8

FRENCH FORESTS.

GREAT DAMAGE IX THE WAR. In an interesting article appearing in "La Renaissance du Tcmrisme," MGeorges Cave reviews the damages which tho war will have caused to tho forests of Fiance. He also considers tho after war prospects both of afforestation of the land and of wood supply from abroad. France, he savs, possessed before the. war 10,000,000 hectares of wooded lands which was an inestimable source of riches t-o her. Urbain Gohier remarked recently ;that war always destroyed men and beasts, factories and places of worship, farms, castles and cottages, but that the war was destroying trees also. Tho name of many a wood has figured in official communiques of fighting at the front; for instances, those of Le Grurie, Le Pretro, do Mortmare, of Argonne and of Hartmanvillerskopf, those of Coucy and of Saint Goba.in. It happens that the departments in which the operations have taken place have all possessed important wooded areas; taking the wholo of the line from the Vosges to tho Pas de Calais and from the Metises to tho Aisne, the extent of wooded territory involved amounts to 1,100,111 hectares, that is about one-eighth of the entire forest land of France. Besides tho total destruction caused by artillery, the. cutting down of woods for strategical purposes, and tho cutting ot trenches involving the sacrifice of trees, as between lloye and Bclfort, where the entire forest land is ruined, the French army needed an immense- amount of xvoorl of all kinds for a, variety of purposes, including stakes for tho barbed wire defences. All this wood was cut from the neighbouring forests, at first without method and this caused great damage. But this waste was soon checked and an agreement was entered into by tho Headquarters Staff of the Department of Woods and Forests by which a special service of woodsmen was organised for the army. The amount of wood used in this war is almost incredible, continues M. Caye, tho quantity having, at the present time, reached the enormous figures of 672.000 cubic meters of wood (stores) for tho front alone. But besides ibis amount there is the, wood used in tho factories for the. manufacture, of millions of rifles, of munition cases, of barracks, motor drays, railway sleepers. It is triif'i that a, certain amount, has been imported into France from abroad, but the greater part has had to be contributed by France herself, who has also provided for some of the needs of tho British Army and those of the army in the cast. It run be easily understood that in order to moot such a. demand not only all existing reserve stocks have, been exhausted, but that immense, felling operation;-! ha.vn had, to be carried out in tho FreiVch forests, even century old trees on the sides of the great roads and of the canals having been ruthlessly out down. If damage has been caused to tho woods on tho front and in the interior of tho country, what will the condition of tho woods be in tho invaded departments? There can bo little- doubt that not only ha\o the Germans helped themselves liberally for thejr immediate military purposes, but that they have also sent the finest, trees into Germany. It is kno-.Mi that wood from Frencti fores!s has been sold in Hamburg, and if, is thought probable that the wood referred to was oak from the line oak forest of Mormal.