Charles H. Sylvester - "Journeys Through Bookland"

Leonard Merrick - "A Chair on The Boulevard"

Henry James - "The Tragic Muse"

Bernie Babcock - "The Coming of the King"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Checking the Waste

M >> Mary Huston Gregory >> Checking the Waste




After this comes wood for lath used in building. This product is usually
taken from lower class wood or logging camp waste. Then comes the wood
for distillation into wood-alcohol for use in manufacture and to furnish
power in engines.

Next in quantity used comes veneer, which has two entirely different
uses. The highest grade woods are cut to about one-twentieth of an inch
and glued to cheaper woods as an outside finish in the making of
furniture. The other use is for veneer used alone, when a very thin wood
is desired. This is employed for butter dishes, berry baskets, crates,
boxes and barrels.

Next on the list come poles--electric railway, electric light,
telegraph, and telephone poles. Every pole that is erected for any of
these purposes, every extension of the service, and all replacing caused
by wind or decay, means the cutting of a tall, straight, perfect tree,
usually cedar or chestnut. If we think of each pole of the network that
covers the entire continent, as a tree, we shall better realize what our
forests have done in binding the nation together.

Leather is stained by soaking the hides in a solution containing the
bark of oak or hemlock. Sometimes an extract is made from chestnut
wood. This has caused one of the most criminal wastes of trees, for a
great deal of timber was cut down solely for the bark, and the wood left
to decay in the forest. But now, as the price of lumber advances, more
of it is used each year and less left to waste.

The bark and extract of the quebracho, a South American tree, are being
imported for use in tanning, and are still further reducing the drain on
our own forests.

Turpentine and rosin do not in themselves destroy the forests any more
than does tapping the maple trees for their sap, but in the making of
turpentine trees that are too small are often "boxed" and the trees are
easily blown down by heavy winds or are attacked by insects and fungi.
Many destructive fires also follow turpentining, so that on the whole
the turpentine industry is responsible for the destruction each year of
large areas of the southern pine forests. The methods of turpentining
introduced by the government result in the saving of thirty per cent.
more turpentine, and also protect the trees so that they may be used
fifteen or twenty years and still be almost as valuable as ever for
timber.

Twenty millions of posts are cut each year in the Lake States alone, and
the entire number used is probably two or three times as great.

These constitute the greater uses of wood, not a full and detailed list;
but it plainly shows that all the uses are not only desirable, but
necessary for our comfort and happiness, and that we would not willingly
sacrifice one of them, and in order that this shall not become
necessary, let us see what abuses we can find in the management of our
forests. And here we find the most startling figures of all.

Great and important as is our list of products made from wood, we are
surprised to learn that of all wood cut fully two-thirds is wasted in
the forests, left to decay or burned. The largest forests are now all
located far from the great manufacturing regions, and that means far
from the lumber market. The cost of transportation must be added to
every car of lumber sold. The freight on a car-load of lumber from the
South to Chicago or other points in the middle West is not less than a
hundred dollars, and from the Pacific coast it is very much higher.

It does not pay to send low-grade lumber when the cost is so great, and
as there is no local market a large part of each tree is burned. All the
upper end of the trunk and all branches are thus destroyed, although
much valuable timber is contained in them.

At one mill in Alabama a pile of waste wood and branches as high as a
two-story house burns night and day throughout the year, and that is
probably true of all the larger mills.

If the timber could be conservatively managed as are live-stock
products, so that all the waste could be utilized, all the small
articles, shingles, lath, posts, tan-bark and extract, pulp-wood, wood
for distillation and small manufactured articles would be made
by-products of the larger cuts.

Much has been said of the greed of large lumber companies in causing
wholesale and reckless destruction of the forests, and much of it is
doubtless true, but the lumber companies cite the fact that no farmer
will gather a crop of corn which will not pay for the labor cost of
gathering, and say that at the present prices of lumber they can not pay
the present freight rates to the factories. It seems therefore that a
certain amount of waste is unavoidable unless wood-working plants are
established near the forest regions.

The first great step in conserving our forests is to stop the
unnecessary wastes in use. The next step is to take measures to prevent
the great destruction of our forests by fire.

Those who have never lived in a great forest region can have little idea
of the extent of the damage caused by these great forest fires. The loss
of life of both man and animals, the sweeping away of houses and crops,
the homelessness and misery of those who have lost everything they had
saved, are not to be taken into account here, but only the loss of the
forests themselves.

It is estimated that the loss by fire is as great as the entire amount
cut for use in the entire United States. The National Conservation
Committee reports that 50,000,000 acres of woodland are burned over
yearly. This probably includes all burned-over lands, in much of which
the standing timber is not destroyed, but the saplings and seedlings are
killed as well as the grass for grazing and for the protection of the
roots. Much land is burned over in this way year after year until hope
of future growth is gone, though the damage to the large trees has not
been great. In one way this loss is even more serious, as it shuts off
the hope of future forests, but the loss of our full-grown standing
forests is grave.

In 1891 this loss amounted to 15,000,000 acres, or nearly forty thousand
acres every day in the year. Since then the work of the Forest Service
in fighting fires and the great clearing of the forests, has reduced
this somewhat, but it still amounts to no less than 30,000 acres of our
best salable timber a day. This is the really great and serious loss of
the forests.

All the wood that is used goes to make our country a better place to
live in, to make its people more comfortable and happy, but all that is
lost by fire is a loss to all the nation in comforts for the future, and
in the present it means high prices for lumber because our forests are
disappearing so rapidly.

And we are letting them burn at the rate of thirty thousand acres every
day! More than enough to supply all our needs. If any one could gather
together in one vast pile our houses and barns, our furniture, our
wagons and carriages, our farm implements, all our home conveniences,
our railroad cross-ties, our trolley and telephone poles, our papers and
magazines, and burn them all, the whole world would be roused by the
fearfulness of the loss. But we sit idly by and see the materials of
which all these things are made and must be made in the future, and with
them our shade, our water-sheds, the soil of the forest-lands itself
destroyed, with never a word of protest.

In a paper prepared for the National Conservation Congress, it was
stated that in some years government survey parties were unable to work
in the Rocky Mountains for whole seasons on account of the dense smoke,
and the fires were allowed to burn till the snows of winter put them
out. The writer further stated that he believed from observation that
the Forest Service, by checking fires in their beginning, has in the
last few years saved more timber than has been used for commercial
purposes.

Private owners of large tracts should be compelled to use the same care
in preventing fires that is exercised by the government. This care, and
the breaking up of the forests into smaller tracts by clearing the land
in alternate sections would soon reduce the fire loss so greatly as
almost to save us from anxiety for the future of our timber lands.

The next great loss to the forests is from insects. When insects have
bored into wood it becomes honey-combed by the canals cut by the little
insects and is utterly valueless. The loss to fruit and forest trees
will be taken up more fully in the chapter on insects. At present it is
only necessary, in order to show how much our forests suffer in this
way, to state that the yearly loss from this cause is placed at no less
than $100,000,000 a year, and the loss to fruits is counted at one-fifth
of the entire crop. Some slight idea of the danger to our forests will
be seen by the simple statement that forty-one different species of
insects infest the locust tree, eighty the elm, one hundred and five the
birch, one hundred and sixty-five the pine, one hundred and seventy the
hickory, one hundred and eighty-six the willow, while oak trees are
attacked by over five hundred!

This is exceedingly difficult to control and can perhaps never be
entirely checked. Some remedies will be suggested later, and by having
smaller forests, more carefully watched, some personal care can be given
to the trees. In Germany the trees are as closely watched as are other
crops, and the saving in value well repays this extra care and expense.

A much smaller loss comes from the winds that sometimes level all the
trees over many square miles. This can not, of course, be prevented,
except possibly in the turpentine forests, but care should be taken to
use all the wood, never allowing it to decay where it fell, and also to
replant the land with trees, unless it is fitted for agriculture.

A great saving of the forests may be effected by what is called
preservative treatment, which consists of treating railroad ties,
piling, mine timbers, poles, and posts with creosote or zinc chlorid to
prevent decay from the moisture of the ground or from injury by
salt-water borers. The use of creosote is almost double the cost of zinc
chlorid, but it is much more effective and durable. A fence post can be
treated with creosote for about ten cents, a railroad tie for twenty
cents, and a telephone pole for from seventy-five cents to a dollar. In
every case the timber treated will last twice as long as it would
without such treatment and in view of the present high prices it is bad
business policy to use timber in such a way that it will need replacing
soon. It is estimated that if all timbers which could be profitably
treated were so cared for, it would mean a money saving to the owners of
$47,000,000, and an annual saving in wood equal to 4,000,000,000 board
feet of lumber.

The next point in the conservation of the forests is to seek substitutes
to take the place of wood. There are many uses of wood which nothing
else will satisfactorily supply. For example, no railroad cross-tie has
ever been designed of other material that does not increase the danger
of railway accidents, though over two hundred kinds have been patented.

There is nothing that will take the place of wood in furniture, and in
many small articles. Some articles might be replaced in metal, but it
makes them too heavy or too expensive. But in certain lines there is an
excellent opportunity to use other materials to great advantage.

Cars are now being built of steel, and of combinations of metal with
asbestos. These are not yet entirely satisfactory, but it is hoped that
they can be perfected soon. Cement and concrete are taking the place of
wood to a great extent in building, and their use will doubtless
increase rapidly.

When veneer is used for barrels and boxes it affords a saving of nearly
two-thirds in the amount of wood required. This is a line of use where
cheaper substitutes should always be used if possible, because a package
is usually used only once, never more than twice, and then discarded, so
that the wood is put to little real service compared with other wooden
articles.

When possible, small articles of wood should be made only in a forest
region or near saw-mills to use the scraps and save an unnecessary drain
on the more valuable grades of lumber.

One of the most important lines in which substitutes are practicable is
in the making of paper and box-board or pasteboard. The latter is
sometimes called strawboard, because it is made from wheat straw, and
where it is manufactured, uses a large amount of straw that would
otherwise be wasted, but the great wheat fields of the West still have
immense quantities of unused straw, which, if made into strawboard,
would not only bring more prosperity to that region but would lessen the
drain on the forests.

A box bound with wire and made of corrugated paper now takes the place
for many light articles of the wooden packing-case. The strawboard also
takes the place of wood-pulp for smaller paper boxes. Rice-straw, hemp,
flax-straw, cotton fiber and peat have all been tested in a small way
and found to make excellent paper, and it is thought corn-stalks can
also be used, but none of these is now manufactured in the United States
on a large scale. This is largely because the price of pulp-wood is low,
and the cost of experimenting with new materials is great with the
results uncertain.

This brings us to the last one of our preventive measures for the
decline of our forests, the one which needs the most careful attention
of all--the replanting of the lands that are not fitted for agriculture,
and planting trees about houses and unoccupied spaces.

Many farmers have planted orchards on a part of their farm-lands and
many trees have been planted in town and country, but until a few years
ago there was no organized effort to plant trees.

Now many states have set apart a day which is called Arbor Day, for this
purpose, but in no state does it hold so important a place as it should.
It is observed by the schools but not by the general public.

In Germany there are regular tree-planting days in which all the people
take part. Every one who is not too poor--and he must be poor
indeed--plants a tree in his own garden, or in front of his home, in the
forest or in the highway; for himself or for the general good.

Each child plants a tree on his or her birthday every year, and watches
and cares for it as it grows. The roadsides are lined with fruit or nut
or flowering trees which have been planted in neat, orderly rows. These
things are in striking contrast to the observance of Arbor Day in this
country, where one tree suffices for an entire school, or at best each
class has a tree of its own. It is all a matter of enthusiasm and
education.

In considering the best trees for planting we come to the last great use
of trees of which we have not spoken. Fruit and nut trees supply us with
large quantities of the most wholesome and delicious food. The apple,
pear, peach, plum, and cherry grow in the central part of the United
States, and oranges, lemons, figs, olives and apricots in the warmer
parts.

By planting these trees in suitable places one may have a rich harvest
for many years to come. If a small fraction of the seeds of fruit trees
which are wasted each year were planted, the general food supply would
be greatly increased, and many benefits would be derived from the trees
themselves.

Have you ever heard the story of "Apple-seed John," the man who,
according to tradition, went through what is now western Pennsylvania,
Ohio and Indiana while the country was still a wilderness and planted
orchards for the settlers who, he was sure, would come later?

So many stories have been told of him that it is hard to discover how
much of the tale is really true. At least one poem has been written
about him, and the Reverend Newell Dwight Hillis has woven the facts and
fancies of his career into a charming book, _The Quest of John Chapman_.

The story is that he spent his winters in the settlements near the
Atlantic coast teaching the children or working at small tasks about the
farms, and taking his pay always in the seeds of apples, peaches, pears,
plums, and grapes. The farmers and their families saved all their seeds
for him and when spring came he filled his boat with seeds and started
down the Ohio River. When he reached a suitable landing-place he took
his bags of seeds on his back and trudged through the forest.

Whenever he came to an open space he planted an orchard, built a fence
of boughs about it, and started on again. And so he traveled on and on,
through all the spring and summer months, year after year, planting his
seeds for those who would come after him, until he grew too old to work.

The first settlers in those states found the orchards and vineyards
awaiting them, and a few trees are still standing that are said to have
been planted by Apple-Seed John. The story of this man who in his humble
way devoted his life to others is one that may well be told and
imitated, for while none of us can do the work he did, it may inspire
us with a wish to make some spot on earth better by planting our few
seeds or plants.

In carrying on this work in the schools as well as by the general
public, a regular plan should be followed. Much can be accomplished with
no expense at all, even in cities. In all cases the expense will be very
small compared to the good accomplished.

Seeds may be planted and later transplanted. This will require no
expense and little labor. Every child, large and small, in city and
country, can learn to do this work and can thus perform a real service.
Small saplings which are growing close together, where they can never
develop, may each be planted in a place where it will have a chance to
grow into a thrifty tree. Most farmers would be entirely willing to
allow the pupils to take such saplings from their wood-lots if the work
were properly done. This is an excellent work for country schools to
undertake, both for the good it will accomplish and for the training of
the pupils themselves in practical work.

Fruit trees of suitable size for planting may be had for about twenty
cents each. Most American children could easily save that amount from
money spent on candy, sweetmeats or toys so as to have a tree ready for
planting on Arbor Day which would yield them fruit as they grow older,
and be a source of pride and pleasure. Such trees will of course usually
be planted at the children's own homes, but it would be an excellent
idea to follow the German plan of planting public orchards just outside
the town. When the trees are old enough to bear, the children are
allowed on certain days to go and gather and eat the fruit and carry it
home in baskets.

The older boys in every school, whether city or country, should be
taught to plant and transplant trees in the best way. The following
directions for the work are sent out by the Department of Agriculture at
Washington:

"The proper season for planting is not everywhere the same. When the
planting is done in the spring, the right time is when the frost is out
of the ground and before budding begins.

"The day to plant is almost as important as the season. Sunny, windy
weather is to be avoided. Cool, damp days are the best. Trees can not be
thrust carelessly into a rough soil and then be expected to flourish.
They should be planted in properly worked soil, well enriched. If they
can not be planted immediately after they are taken up the first step is
to prevent their roots drying out in the air. This may be done by piling
fresh dirt deep about the roots or setting the roots in mud.

"In planting they should be placed from two to three inches deeper than
they stood originally. Fine soil should always be pressed firmly--not
made hard--about the roots, and two inches of dry soil at the top should
be left very loose to retain the moisture."

The reading of such poems as Lucy Larcom's "He who plants a tree plants
a hope," or William Cullen Bryant's, "Come, let us plant the apple
tree," and suitable talks or papers on trees, dealing with their kinds
and uses, on the benefits of forests, and on practical forestry, should
be a part of the Arbor Day exercises.

In many communities a tract of land which is not well suited for general
agriculture may be obtained for the benefit of the school, and some
simple work in forestry may be undertaken by the pupils. Sometimes a
farmer may be induced to give a small bit of waste land where the
experiment may be tried. Sometimes such land can be bought by the school
in one of the following ways:

A series of entertainments may be given by the pupils, the proceeds to
be applied to the buying of the land, and the pupils may also obtain
money in other outside ways to bring to the general fund. If only one
acre can be bought and cleared by the pupils, and properly planted, a
little at a time, a tree for each child's birthday, or by obtaining
small seedlings and saplings from the forest, it will be a source of
keen interest, and will give an added pleasure to the school work.
Watching the growth of the trees and caring for them will keep this
interest alive year after year, and in time it will become a valuable
property belonging to the school. Sometimes the school officials will
set aside a sum from the public money to purchase the land. In one High
School, one acre is thus bought each year, and every pupil in the senior
year gives and plants a tree. Sometimes the farmers or the merchants of
a community may unite in buying the land, which will, of course, become
public property, and set it aside for improvement after the manner of a
city park.

Sometimes women's clubs become interested in such a movement and will
raise the funds necessary for beginning it. It then becomes the duty of
the school, year after year, to plant and care for the land. After a
time the school will have a valuable property to sell, or can have a
yearly income from the sale of timber.

Such plans may be carried out in many schools. Every school can and
should do something to forward this great work. All school yards should
be well planted and care taken that the boy with a new knife does not
try it on the bark or that the bark is not rubbed from the trees in
careless play. Many trees planted in school yards have been destroyed
in this way.

But we shall not be safe if only the schools plant trees. Farmers and
lot owners should take up the work in earnest, adding as many trees as
possible each year. In this way they could insure an abundant supply of
fruit, nuts and timber for the future, could increase the value of their
property, and provide a steady income besides.

Farmers' institutes would find this a most important work to undertake,
arranging for a common plan to be carried out in an entire neighborhood,
and setting aside days in which all the members may work together to set
out trees by the roadsides. This brings us to the question of what kinds
of trees are best to plant.

For town or city lots, fruit trees should always be chosen, because they
bear in a short time and will add to the family food supply, and so
lessen the cost of living and increase the variety of food. Every farm
should have a good assortment of fruit. Any nurseryman's catalogue will
furnish lists of kinds so that a wise choice may be made. In selecting
fruit trees, great care should be taken to choose the best varieties.

For streets and roadsides, nut or wild fruit trees are best, for the
trees are generally graceful in appearance and will yield some return,
as the more popular maples and poplars will not. The chestnut is one of
the best trees for such planting, though it is of a rather slow growth.
English or American walnuts, pecans, mulberry and persimmon trees can be
grown in most parts of the United States.

One town in Kansas is planting fruit trees on all its streets, so that
in a few years there will be an abundance of fruit free to every
passer-by. This is a most excellent plan, but individuals would be
likely to find the fruit molested if only a few trees are planted in a
community.

Barn-lots and lanes should be planted with wild cherry, haws, elder,
dogwood, mountain-ash, and other wild fruits to serve as food for birds,
poultry, and hogs.

Where the banks of streams need to be protected from erosion, probably
the best tree for planting is the basket willow, which thrives well near
the water, has a heavy network of roots, and is valuable for weaving
into baskets and furniture.

For all hillsides and rocky places, as well as wood-lots, the hardwoods
which sell best for timber should be planted in the North and West, and
the evergreens near the sea-coasts and in the South. Forests of oak,
hickory, walnut, maple (especially the sugar maple, which yields a
steady return during the lifetime of the tree), elm, chestnut, and
locust will sell for a good price, and are always salable. It requires
many years to grow large timber, but by proper management several years
can be gained in its growth, and it is always a valuable investment for
a farmer to make for his children.

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.