Title: American forestry
Identifier: americanforestry231917amer (find matches)
Year: 1910-1923 (1910s)
Authors: American Forestry Association
Subjects: Forests and forestry
Publisher: Washington, D. C. : American Forestry Association
Contributing Library: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden
Digitizing Sponsor: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden

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FRENCH FOREST DESTRUCTION 31
Text Appearing After Image:
WAR'S DESOLATION IN A ONCE BEAUTIFUL WOODED VALLEY Over this ground, near Verdun. France, has for months swept a storm of shot and shell. Practically every foot of it has been fought over and thousands have died, while where once stood fine trees there remain some gaunt, shattered skeletons, mute monuments to the tremendous struggle. in trenches, and forts, sheds, magazines, and barracks of the military zone are needed. "What will remain standing tomorrow? "Even in the Bois de Boulogne, at the alarm in the beginning of the war, the trees were cut down which might hinder the ' defense' of three or four ridiculous pallisades. In the Jardin of Foreign Affairs, on the quai d'Orsay, a celebrated tree, venerable and magnificent, was sacrificed to establish a tennis court (15,000 francs) evidently necessary for diplomatic maneuvres. The dryad which protected this place succumbed to the nymphs of the embassy. Down with the trees! "If we do not restore French forests, we shall gain victories and reconquer our provinces in vain. What happened to Nineveh and Babylon will happen to Paris. Civilization cannot flourish in a desert." A dispatch from Verdun, France, says; With the close of the war the entire line of trenches in France, extending from Alsace to the Belgium border, may be converted into a sort of national sacred forest, as a permanent tribute to the memory of the French "poilus" who died there defending their national soil. A proposition to this effect has just been prepared by the general council of the department of the Meuse, and will soon be submitted to the French government. The plan is to buy the battleground from the farmers. Should this plan be finalh' accepted, future generations, not only of France but of the entire world, would always have the opportimit)^ of \asiting the line of trenches over 600 kilometers in length on which the French threw back the tide of German invasion at the battle of the Mame, and which tiU the end of the war will alwa\'s remain the basis of France's military- effort to rid her soil entirely of the enem\-. The immediate land through which these long lines of trenches run, together with the battlefields of the Somme, of Artois and of Champagne will, it is believed, never again be rendered cultivatablc. Aside from the deep trenches and bayous, the ground h;is been so pitted with shell holes to a depth vars'ing from a few feet to fifteen feet, and all the upper strata of soil on which fertility- depends so completely wiped out, that little if any use could ever be made of the ground for agricultural pur- ))oses for years to come.

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