Forests and Human Welfare... 
 
This is the second of a series of three articles by Dr. 
Schmitz on the history of wood through the ages. The final 
article will appear in our January issue.-The Editor. 
N 1674, Evelyn published his still famous book 
"Sylva" or a "Discourse of Forest Trees and the 
Propagation of Timber in His Majesty's Domin- 
ion." This book, which incidently was the first official 
publication of the Royal Society, had a profound 
direct influence on English forestry and an indirect 
influence on world history. 
The action of the Royal Society and its member, 
Evelyn, aroused the Nation and a large amount of 
planting was undertaken the next decade. Even in 
1678, four years after the publication of Sylva, 
Evelyn was able to report to his King that millions 
of trees had been planted. The results of this cru- 
sade were even more interesting. A hundred years 
later, the fact that there was sufficient timber in the 
country for the construction of the Royal Navy was 
publicly acknowledged to be due to the planting un- 
dertaken in the reign of Charles II on the initiation 
of Evelyn and the Royal Society. It is equally cer- 
tain that most, if not all, of the ships which fought 
in the battle of Trafalgar, and which previous to this 
had secured for England the command of the seas, 
were built of timber planted after the publication of 
Evelyn's Sylva. Who can say what the course of 
history might have been had not England had suffi- 
cient timber to built and maintain her fleet? 
The progress of few if any nations has been more 
profoundly influenced by forests than was that of the 
United States. The influence of the forests on the 
development of the United States began in 1620 when 
the Pilgrims first built their village at Plymouth. 
As time went on, the forest influence impinged itself 
more extensively, if less directly, upon the habits and 
lives of the American people, and the end is not yet. 
If past events are indicative of future events, the 
forest will long continue to exert a great influence on 
American social and economic structures and insti- 
tutions. 
The American attitude towards forests probably 
began to take shape when the first Pilgrim stepped 
back a few paces from the beach and cut a tree for 
fuel or for shelter on December 11, 1620. The avail- 
 
For more than two centuries the American 
people regarded their timber resources as 
inexhaustible 
By HENRY SCHMITZ 
ability of adequate supplies of timber permitted and 
stimulated the rapid development of the New Eng- 
land colonies in two ways. In the first place, building 
material and fuel could be obtained merely for the 
effort of collecting it; and in the second place, sur- 
plus supplies could be sold in England, thus assuring 
a means of employment and a source of income for 
the colonists. Throughout the entire so-called pioneer 
stage of development of America, forests served the 
pioneer in precisely these two ways. 
The rapid growth of the colonies required tremend- 
ous quantities of wood. It will be remembered that 
the Boston Colony for example, in less than a dozen 
years after its founding, boasted of a population of 
16,000. Houses were built to meet the needs of an 
ever expanding population. Commerce with England 
required ships and docking facilities. Lumber, al- 
though it was not then so called, was required at 
every turn, and fortunately it was available at every 
turn. 
Somewhere, somehow, during this embryonic stage 
of our national development, a concept arose which 
dominated for over 250 years the attitude of the 
American people towards their forest resources. It 
does not seem strange that these colonists with the 
crude means of forest destruction and transporta- 
tion at their disposal would come to regard the for- 
ests of North America as inexhaustible, despite the 
fact that they were cutting them at a fairly rapid 
rate near the sea and along rivers. After all, consid- 
ering the tremendous stretches of timber that were 
known to exist in New England, their efforts seemed 
puny indeed. Then, too, every traveler and explorer 
returned with stories of even greater forests than 
those occurring in New England. Little wonder that 
the idea of inexhaustible forest resources should 
have developed in America; but that it should have 
persisted for over 250 years is beyond comprehen- 
sion. As late as 1891, we find a certain 
 
geographer of note, a. President to be of 
the National Geographical Society, utter- 
ing the following bit of nonsense: "It is 
all bosh-this talk about the destruction 
of our forests. There is more wood grow- 
ing in the United States now than there 
was a hundred years ago, more than we 
want and can use; don't you know that all 
abandoned farms in New England grow 
up in woods? Don't you know that in the 
South more than one-half of the land is 
covered with forests? And along the 
Pacific Coast the timber is simply inex- 
haustible." 
When wise men of their day spoke thus, 
In 1929 our forest and woodworking 
industries in the United States 
employed directly over 1,300,000 
workers; left, the Virginia and 
Rainy Lake Co., at Virginia