Forest Produces, The (1949)

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] come [Applause] [Music] nation's forests the timber flows never ending stream by tractor by log truck and by water down to the Mills on River and harbor 50 billion board feet a year and three and a half million JS to create the nation's newspapers and books its furniture and Fuel and to build the nation's homes and to produce its Leed pencils and baseball bats it's charcoal and wood alcohol it's Telegraph poles turpentine and explosives it's celluloids Barrel staves phonograph records and wallpaper and a thousand other products indispensible to our daily lives but there is another product which many people do not realize depends upon the forest and which is more valuable to man than all the Timber and its byproducts or even those three and A2 million jobs this is water most of the world's water is stored in the oceans here great quantities evaporate and are carried over the land by air currents as these currents move across the country they strike high mountain ranges this forces the air upward cooling it until it condenses first as cloud and then upon further cooling as rain or snow thus the mountain mountains Rob the air of its moisture and there is little left to fall in the flat dry country Beyond here the air is very dry so dry in fact that when the few storm clouds come the rain May evaporate even as it falls as we see here and not one drop May ever reach the parched and thirsty ground so life in this area must depend on water coming down from the Mountain Forest above however nature first must prepare the mountains to store the water and regulate its flow the trees and forest plants play their part for they protect the soil from freezing and they shade the snow against melting thus the water from the slowly melting snow May sink into the ground and there be stored each tree and Forest plant fills the soil with a mat of roots which ties the soil together when the trees die they leave the soil filled with a maze of absorbent rotting roots and passageways which quickly carry the water downward here it may spread for many miles underground filling the soil to a level called the water table a great underground ocean of fresh water a huge natural Reservoir supplying moisture life to the land above it some of it breaks out again in Springs that join to form the rivers the arteries of Life Born of the forest those arteries carry life to the farms on 21 million Acres of irrigated land in the west many million Acres more could multiply their crops if they had enough water water much of the country's electric power and light comes from the flowing Waters of the forest many factories could not run an hour without a steady supply of clean cold water thus although many City dwellers do not know it their lives depend directly on this great natural supply of water moving down from the forest fresh water and Timber two of the forest's gifts to mankind but there is a third gift not a material one yet Perhaps of equal importance for within the 200 million Acres of national forests and parks are preserved our last great areas of wilderness a Heritage for all the people and so to our national parks and forests the people come in numbers undreamed of from every part of the land from farm and Factory and mine young and old people searching for interest relaxation and beauty beauty of Flower Beauty of leaf and tree beauty of color and space and beauty of majestic form and in these Forest distances with their lakes and mountains and shadows there live wild creatures and growing things here in the silence and Majesty of the forest surely we may have our eyes opened to New Horizons and understanding here may be a rock wall carved out by the flowing Waters in these symmetrical and curving lines may be read the story of past ages in the Stream that carve that rock there live plants and insects and the steel head trout that feed upon them here is one of Nature's Miracles being enacted before our eyes these fish are returning from the ocean to the exact spot where they were born driven by extremely sensitive reactions to guiding signs in the water chemistry and temperature and Swift currents they followed unerringly up the proper branch of the stream leaping High waterfalls to end their long journey from the sea on the gravel bars above here they lay their spawn safe from the hungry mouths of other fish that cannot leap the falls in the wilderness is not only water for the fishermen but water with its color and Reflections its movement its Stillness and the many living creatures that come to it following the Headwater Trail we meet wild creatures in their homes and from them learn a new lesson the long lipus is adapted to feeding on water plants in ponds made by the beaver here the elf take grass in Meadows and brows on trees and bushes still higher on the ridges the big horn sheep feed on bushes and Mountain grasses not chosen by other animals thus each creature great or small can share the forest Bounty so nature gives to man The Forest drawing its elements from the universe its energy from the sunlight and building them into life pouring out its richness in a never ending stream for man to use of Timber and water and giving him also a deeper understanding of Life man May draw life from this stream for all time or he may destroy the forest and with it destroy dra himself the choice is one of the good management or the bad management of his indispensable servant the living Forest