Forest product

“ Forestry This major group includes establishments primarily engaged in the operation of timber tracts, tree farms, forest nurseries, and related activities such as reforestation services and the gathering of gums, barks, balsam needles, maple sap, Spanish moss, and other forest products. ”

“ Among our Nation's most valuable and unique natural resources are its forests-valuable because of the numerous uses for wood products from forests, unique because this resource is renewable. As with any resource, forest products must be used efficiently and with foresight. ”

“ By utilization, is meant the conservative and intelligent harvesting of the forest, with the aim of obtaining the greatest amount of product from a given area, with the least waste, in the quickest time, and without the slightest deterioration of the forest as a whole. The forester cuts his mature trees, only, and generally leaves a sufficient number on the ground to preserve the forest soil and to cast seed for the production of a new crop. ”

“ Our observance of National Forest Products Week reminds us that, in one way or another, forest resources affect all of us, city and country dwellers alike. Forests supply many material needs, from lumber for homes to paper products to the baseball bats of our national pastime. And, whether in national and city parks or in local woods, forests enhance our physical and spiritual well-being with their scenic vistas and recreational opportunities. ”

“ In a word, we may say that forestry—using the term as meaning the science and art of getting from the woods the greatest and most lasting benefits—has never been studied except by a very few of our people. One reason for this is that until quite recently all forest products have been abundant, and the injury to water supply, health, farming, manufacturing and navigation resulting from the destruction of the woods has only just begun to appear. ”

“ Only when a reduction in the natural supplies of forest products under the demands of civilization, necessitates a husbanding of supplies or necessitates the application of art or skill or knowledge in securing a reproduction, or when unfavorable conditions of soil or climate induced by forest destruction make themselves felt does the art of forestry make its appearance. ”

“ The inhabitants of the forested area in the wet zone give more attention to the collection of forest products, such as palm oil and rubber, and only grow sufficient grain and roots for their own consumption. ”

“ As our forests decrease in extent and deteriorate in quality, and as, with the increase of our population, the demands upon forest products of all kinds become greater, the necessity of a rational system of forestry, [Pg 13] and the need of educated foresters becomes more apparent every day. ”

“ Ever since this country's earliest inhabitants hunted game and gathered food in their deep shade, America's forests have provided man with vital sustenance, as well as wood for fuel and shelter. During National Forest Products Week, we reflect on the continuing importance of our Nation's forests and remind ourselves of the need to manage them with care. ”

“ The American standard of living depends to no small extent on the care with which we use our forest resource. Fortunately, trees are a renewable resource. They can be grown as a crop and harvested in such a way that the stand is kept productive, and a steady supply of forest products is assured. ”

“ During National Forest Products Week, we acknowledge and celebrate the many uses of our parks, forests, and woodlands, and we honor the dedicated Americans who work to ensure our forests remain productive and magnificent for future generations. ”

“ Our forests, with their billions of trees, are the backbone of agriculture, the skeleton of lumbering, and the heart of industry. Even now, in spite of their depletion, they are the cream of our natural resources. They furnish wood for the nation, pasture for thousands of cattle and sheep, and water supply for countless cities and farms. They are the dominions of wild life. Millions of birds, game animals, and fish live in the forests and the forest streams. The time is coming when our forests will be the greatest playgrounds of America. ”

“ Forestry is encouraged so far as planting is concerned; about 1,000,000 acres are in natural forest land. Millions of trees have been planted on land not otherwise useful. The supply of wood in future will be greatly increased and there may even be export. ”

“ America's thriving forest products market helps protect and preserve our abundant forests for future generations. Demand for forest products encourages landowners to replant and maintain healthy forests, knowing that through proper stewardship and responsible management, our precious forests will continue to contribute to our economic prosperity and quality of life. ”

“ From the manufacturing point of view alone, our forest resources are as important to everyone of us as to the lumberman, and in many ways more so, for if they are exhausted he can move or change his business ”

“ The greater the success of the forester, the more profound is the solemn stillness of the forest—and the more monotonous. In place of the natural forest, with its varied and teeming life, we have what Wordsworth called a timber factory. In the natural forest, with its mixture of many kinds of trees, the undergrowth of shrubs, and carpet of grass and weeds, the stronger trees spread out their arms in all directions, and fritter away (as the scientific forester would say) their wood-producing powers in making much firewood and little valuable timber. ”

“ Each of the tree’s oval branches stands for a renewable resource of the forest—water, timber, forage, wildlife, recreation—and the products and services flowing from them. The trunk represents the Nation and its people who benefit from forest resources. ”

“ Considering the many influences of the forest that are beneficial to agriculture, it would seem as though ideal forest environments would be the best annual assurance that the crops of the field would not fail and that the soil would most generously respond to the seed-sower.
So well is man served in the distribution of the waters and the management of their movements by the forests, that forests seem almost to think. ”

“ Another function of the woods, to which I have barely alluded, deserves a fuller notice than can be bestowed upon it in a treatise the scope of which is purely economical. The forest is the native habitat of a large number of humbler plants, to the growth and perpetuation of which its shade, its humidity, and its vegetable mould appear to be indispensable necessities. ”

“ Some of these forest tracts are now undergoing a careful study by experts in forestry, with the aim of subjecting them to methods of treatment specially adapted to them, in order that they may yield both useful material and a constant revenue, without impairing the productive power or vitality of the forest. ”

“ Forestry, if the purely commercial aspects be disregarded, is the ecology of a particular kind of vegetation, the forest. Therefore, in pointing out the connection between them, it is only necessary to say that whatever contributes to the ecology of the forest is a contribution to forestry. ”

“ There is no undergrowth as in our forests at home, but there are here and there gray rocks, large and small, covered with fresh green moss, or with gray, pink and yellow lichen. There were rustic benches all along, but the forest was quite deserted except for an occasional woodman with a fire and piles of neatly chopped wood, or some little boys drawing carts filled with bundles of sticks for winter use. ”

“ Nature is doing all she can to keep up the supply of trees, and, if we give her half a chance, there will be timber enough both for us and for those that come after us. The forest crop is like any other crop, except that it cannot be cut every year.
Every one should understand that he has an interest in the forest. Although he may not own a foot of land, yet his prosperity depends in part on how the forests are managed. ”

“ This science is the basis of all problems dealing with the growing of timber and is therefore a study of the utmost importance to forestry. Forest ecology is the study of the relations of trees and forests to their surroundings. By surroundings (or environment) we mean all the factors which influence their growth and reproduction, such as soil temperature, soil moisture, soil texture, rainfall, light, wind, air temperature, relative humidity, altitude, slope, exposure, and surface. Forests, we must remember, are not warehouses of standing logs ”

“ This is one of the woods which does not threaten to become soon exhausted. A supply for half a century, at present rate of use, is in sight, if no more should grow; but in fifty years new forests, now young, will be large enough to use. ”

“ Now, with improved means of transportation by land and by sea, the questions of wood supply and of forestry development, which at one time were of very local concern, have become world questions, and he who proposes to discuss intelligently forest conditions and forestry movement in one country must understand what is going on in other countries. ”

“ Forests which now seem entirely unrelated will be seen to possess the most intimate developmental connection, and the fuller insight into the life history gained in this way will have a direct bearing upon methods of conservation, etc. It will further show that the forester must know other vegetations as well, since grassland and thicket formations have an intimate influence upon the course of the succession, as well as upon the advance of a forest frontier. ”

“ The practice of forestry is necessarily different in different kinds of forests and under different economic conditions. All that the Forester knows must here be applied, and applied in workable fashion, not only to the forest, but to the men who use the forest. ”

“ It is common, therefore, for the foresters abroad to plant what they call nurse-trees along with those which they intend to make the staple of the ultimate and full-grown forest, the final outcome of their one hundred and twenty or one hundred and sixty years of watching and culture. If, for instance, they propose to raise what shall be at last a forest of oak-timber, they will plant with the oaks successive rows of the pine, the beech, the maple, the larch, or the birch, each at a distance perhaps of twenty feet from its own kind, but each only four feet from some neighbor. ”

“ In a word, forestry interests us here because, having already obtained a foothold in our country, through it forest beauty stands on the threshold of a new relationship. This relationship, which is to grow more intimate with time, appears to justify a certain discrimination in the choice of the trees and forests herein described, and an occasional reference to some of the less technical matters of forestry that may incidentally suggest themselves as being of some interest to the general reader. ”

“ Other types of trees, including more than 175 species of commercial value, grace our contemporary forest. They add to the grandeur and glory of our land, immeasurable in their fullest meaning, though in a tangible sense furnishing food and protective cover to wildlife, shade and firewood to campers, and timber to us all. ”

“ Our knowledge regarding tree planting and the peculiarities of the different species is, as yet, very meagre. We must discover the best methods of cutting trees and of disposing of the slash. We must investigate rates of growth, yields and other problems of forest management. We must study the effect of climate on forest fires. We must continue experiments in order to develop better systems of fire protection.
We need more forest experiment stations to promote the production of more timber. Twenty of our leading industries utilize lumber as their most important raw material. ”

“ Finally much of the space that might be occupied by valuable timber may be given up to trees having little or no market value. 285 The rule is universal that the amount and value of material that can be taken from an area of wild forest remains far behind what the same land may bear if properly treated by the forester. It is certain, therefore, that in the future, when most American forests shall be in a high state of cultivation, the annual output of forests will, from a much restricted area, exceed everything known at the present day. ”

“ The possibilities under intelligent care are not indicated by nature's average, but by her accidental best, and usually they far exceed even this. A fair comparison is that of scientific farming with unsystematic gleaning from wild and untended fields. The foregoing general principles of forest growth have been purposely outlined very briefly so as to serve as a mere introduction to their application or modification in concrete cases. ”

“ Arbor days have perhaps also had a retarding influence upon the practical forestry movement, in leading people into the misconception that forestry consists in tree planting, in diverting attention from the economic question of the proper use of existing forest areas, in bringing into the discussion poetry and emotions, which have clouded the hard-headed practical issues, and delayed the earnest attention of practical business men. ”

“ Through forest management and its implements, including timber cutting, National Forests are cared for in their own best interests and in the interests of man. The most useful trees are perpetuated in their proper environment through silviculture (silva, the forest, and culture, to cultivate) , the science of producing and caring for a forest. ”