Green Glory

This is a story of the forests of the world: their extent, character, and variety; their role in maintaining a balance in nature; their destruction, management, and replacement; and, lastly, but most important, the consequences of their mismanagement upon the character of the countryside and upon the economy of nations. It is a story which has been told many times before, but rarely so effectively. With the possible exception of South America, no region of the world has been spared the destruction of its forests which has so closely followed the colonization of the land. Only a handful of nations—Sweden, Finland, Russia, Yugoslavia—have recovered t0 a point where the harvesting of trees is matched by the rate of replacement. The consequences have been inevitable and disastrous. The floods of the Yellow River which have depleted great areas of topsoil in China; the steady advance of the Sahara and Arabian deserts, which but short centuries ago were clothed in forests; and in our own country, the Dust Bowl of the 1930's, the passing of the tremendous white pine forests of the north, and the perilous lowering of the water table in the southwest are but a few examples of the effects of widespread deforestation. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps, formed in the depression days to combat unemployment, can trace its origin to forest depletion and the need for conservation practices. This book, however, is more than an cloquent plea for conservation. It is an urgent warning that the well-being of a nation—and the United States is no exception—is intimately bound up in innumerable ways with its forest resources, and that the destruction of these without their replacement is national suicide. To be sure, steps have been taken to replace our dwindling reserves, but the United States, like other nations, long ago passed the point of being self-sufficient in this respect. The author knows his subject, and he speaks with a conviction arising out of this sure knowledge. One can only wish that his proposal to the United Nations to turn the armies of the world into foresters would be considered seriously by all nations.