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WCU - Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

Editorial: Wood-Pulp and Forestry

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  • In promoting a national park in the southern Appalachians, Chase Ambler wrote dozens of editorials and submitted them to newspapers and magazines throughout the east coast, including this one on the depletion of our national forests. After the editorials were published, the Appalachian National Park Association often reprinted and circulated them as part of their promotional campaign. Chase P. Ambler (1865-1932) was a founding member and long-time secretary of the association.
  • To the Editor : Will you kindly use the following or any portion of it in your paper and forward a marked copy to the Secretary of the Appalachian National Park Association. Dr. C. P. Ambler, Secretary, Box 384, Asheville, N. C. WOOD-PULP AND FORESTRY. The serious attention of the lumber trade is being directed to the rapid depletion of the American forests, and the application of scientific forestry in place of the present wasteful and destructive methods is being inculcated by the forestry section of the Department of Agriculture. Some indication of the immense consumption of timber in the manufacture of news paper in this country is given in an excerpt from an exchange which claims that while it is a well-known fact that the newspapers of the world are using up the forests for their supply of paper, there are probably few people who will not be startled at the announcement made by one of the chief New York papers that its Sunday Easter number would take all the wood of forty acres of virgin forest. This journal claims to use in its morning and evening editions some eleven acres of woodland, producing about 7,000 feet to the acre. Something like 280,000' feet of timber was used for the supply of reading matter to New York by this one paper alone. Forestry, as has been pointed out by an authority on the subject, has been too generally regarded as an esthetic fad, and its scientific application merely an agreeable avocation of the very wealthy. It is, however, an importance to our natural well-being far beyond mere esthetic considerations—powerful though these may be. It means the utility of vast areas of non-agriculural lands in every part of this country. By its application we are assured of the permanency of our lumber supply and the stability of the lumber trade. The regulation and conservation of the water supply of our principal rivers is largely dependent on the timbered lands, and the favorable influence of tree culture upon climate has been well set forth by our forestry experts. The application of scientific forestry, however, owing to the slowness of the growth of the trees, is not within the means of any single person or organization without the control of great wealth. The work is for state or federal governments, unless the taxation upon forest lands shall be abolished or reduced to a minimum. One of the methods advocated for the introduction of scientific forestry where the destruction of the timbered and non-agricultural lands has been most marked, is the establishing of national parks. An association has been formed in Chicago to urge the parking of a large area in Minnesota, and in Asheville, North Carolina, the Appalachian National Park Association has been organized for the protection of the magnificent forests of the southern Appalachian mountains by placing them under the regulation of the Government as a national park. These efforts are strictly in accord with the teachings of the forestry section of the Department of Agriculture for the support of which the nation makes a liberal appropriation. The Congress will take suitable measures to give to, the country the parks petitioned for, with the vast economic reforms which they represent, may reasonably be expected.— The Inland Printer, Chicago and New York.

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Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

This digital collection was created to contribute to the public's understanding of the forces and ideas that led to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934. The most vi...

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