WOOD HANDBOOK, Forest Products Laboratory, Forest Service, U. S. D. A., Handbook No. 72, pp. 528, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1956, $2,00.
In 1910, when the Forest Products Laboratory of the U.S. Forest Service was established at Madison, Wisconsin, it became the first institution in the world devoted entirely to general research on wood and its utilization. In the ensuing years, a continuing and expanding program permitted the accumulation of a monumental amount of information which is here incorporated in a handbook designed as an aid to better and more efficient use of wood as a material of construction.
The mere listing of the chapters is indicative of the comprehensive coverage: structure of wood; characteristics of some important commercial woods grown in the U.S.; physical properties of wood; strength values of clear wood and related factors; grades and sizes of lumber; stress grades and working stresses; timber fastenings; solid and built-up structural members; gluing of wood; glued structural members; plywood and other crossbanded products; structural sandwich construction; bent wood members; control of moisture content and shrinkage of wood; fire resistance of wood construction; painting and finishing wood; protection from wood-destroying organisms; wood preservation; poles, piling and ties; thermal insulation; building fibreboards; and modified woods and paper-base laminates.
After each chapter the significant literature is given. The carefully prepared index and a glossary of terms complete this invaluable hand. book.
TECNOLOGIA DEL LEGNO (Wood Technology) - G. Giordano, Volume II. Il legno dalla foresta ai vari impieghi (Wood extraction and utilization) pp. 950, ill. 871. Ed. Hoepli, Milan. 1956. L. It. 8,600.
This book, by Professor Giordano of the University of Florence, fob lows a first volume devoted to wood properties. Expressing the author's very extensive experience, it covers all logging and extraction operations in the forest and primary conversion, wood-working machinery, and the operation of sawmills.
The first part dealing with forest exploitation, includes chapters on the selection and marking of trees, felling, conversion and preparation of round-wood products and the work and labor involved, maintenance of tools, extraction and transportation (comparing trends in the U.S.A., the U.S.S.R. and Europe), and estimates of costs for all the various operations and phases examined.
The second part concerns the layout and operation of sawmills and wood" working machinery, while in an appendix the author expounds his ideas on methods of improving productivity both in the forest and in woodworking industries.
This volume is not only a students' textbook. With its 950 pages, it constitutes a kind of compendium for technicians and foresters. It gives practical advice on how to obtain the best results with a minimum of expense, always against a background of good silviculture and sound forest management.
MADERAS Y BOSQUES ARGENTINOS. (Timbers and Forests in the Argentine). Lucas A. Tortorelli. pp. 910. illus. Editorial Acmé S.A.C.I., Buenos Aires, 1956.
The flora of South America includes a vast number of tree species, the majority of them being known only to the botanists. In fact, the silvics and dendrology of South America are today one of the main unknowns of forestry. Within most countries, scarcely 10 percent of the known species are utilized in one way or another although they include timbers of very varied qualities which could certainly add a great many commercial species to industry.
This work of Professor Tortorelli must be considered against this backs ground, and it represents a valuable contribution toward a better knowledge of South American timbers and forests. It completes the author's 1940 publication on Argentine timbers.
The main part of the book which carries a preface by Professor Ph. Guinier, is concerned with the structure and properties of 111 species of Argentina, and contains a key to the identification of the woods described in the text which is, we believe, the widest in scope yet published originally in Spanish. In addition, there is a good collection of microphotographs, and an extensive bibliography listing some 400 references.
Professor Tortorelli's work is the fruit of a great effort to overcome the confusion reigning over the identification of many species and to encourage the opening of new markets for them. It is to be complemented by a more detailed descriptive study of the forest types in Argentina.
HANDBOOK FOB TEACHING OF CONSERVATION AND RESOURCE-USE. Richard L. Weaver, The National Association of Biology Teachers in conjunction with The American Nature Association, pp. 499, The Interstate Printers and Publishers, Inc., Danville, Illinois. 1955.
In 1952, the National Association of Biology Teachers in the U.S.A. Organized a conservation project designed "to develop and promote the acceptance of a set of criteria of objectives which can be documented by actual illustrations of good teaching techniques, particularly by biology teachers, and which can be used to stimulate many more teachers to increase the emphasis on conservation". The project was organized with state committees, executives and advisory committees, and regional committees and, after three years' intensive work, has reported.
The report is in the form of a handbook or casebook primarily reporting in the teachers' own words projects in the broad field of conservation which they individually worked out and applied to meet the particular needs and opportunities of their own classes Teachers everywhere, and particularly biology teachers, were offered opportunity to contribute, and many did so.
A wide variety of projects was reported, using all sorts of techniques for teaching and involving both classroom and field work. Perhaps the central theme is that a successful project in the individual school needs to be closely connected with the particular environment of the school and of the pupils.
Most of the projects reported dealt with conservation not as a thing apart but as an integral part of biology. That this approach was effective is evident from the accounts of individual projects.
The following is a list of the aids available to teachers in preparing their projects: bibliography of free and inexpensive material for conservation and resource-use education; a conservation bibliography; conservation in high-school biology texts; conservation films and filmstrips. The handbook gives abundant evidence of what can be accomplished in this generally neglected field given enthusiasm, imagination and will, and although it is specific to one country, it may well contain useful suggestions for those in other countries who are concerned with developing the teaching of conservation to young people.
THE LAW OF FORESTRY W.A. Gordon. pp. 574. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, York House, Kingsway, London, NV. C. 2. £ 3.10s.
Primarily a basic reference work for British foresters, administrators and civil servants, this book is in addition something more and is recommended for reading to all those concerned with the difficult matter of framing legislation appropriate to official forest policy on the one hand and, on the other, adapted to local circumstances and environments.
The various laws relating to the United Kingdom and overseas territories are described here with appropriate commentaries and are set against their historical backgrounds. The author offers not only a critical analysis but an account of the discussions that led to a law's framing and the reasons for which it was shaped into its final form. Forest laws, and particularly the regulations implementing them, may often require to be adapted to changing circumstances; the United Kingdom has had four basic Forestry Acts between 1919 and 1951. The problems requiring solution vary with time. It is, therefore, all the more necessary to seek the fundamental guide line on which sound forest laws can be based, and this is just exactly what Mr. Gordon's method of presentation makes possible. The book provides ample material for reflection.
The author has perhaps the unique distinction of holding at once a Masters degree in Forestry from Oxford University and a Diploma in Anthropology: he is a barrister-at-law, and he has had wide experience in many territories. He has had the collaboration of many well-known authorities in compiling his treatise.
The book is divided into two main divisions of almost equal length. The first, concerning the law of forestry in Great Britain, is further subdivided into two parts, the first giving a succinct account of British law in general, particularly that referring to landed property, while the second deals specifically with the law of forestry in Britain.
A background of general principles is essential to the understanding of any forest laws, but particularly so in the ease of Britain, which did not have any forest law proper before the end of the first world war. The author in feet considers that the only law that really expounds a forest policy is the Forestry Act of 1951. This is perhaps an extreme view because finest policy is; often implicit in a forest law rather than specifically spelled out, especially when most of a country's woodlands are privately-owned. However, except for the old royal forests, to which a special section of the book is devoted (and in which very interesting details on the management of the New Forest and the Forest of Dean are given), the other woodlands of Great Britain were never governed by special landed property laws prior to 1951.
Since forests are a particular kind of property, and jurisprudence. i.e., the interpretation of the law by the courts, necessarily leads to the laying down of special rulings in regard to timber and forests, the description of these rulings which are particularly complex in Britain, takes over 100 pages. And since, except in ease of overthrow by revolution, laws are the product of a continuous evolution deeply rooted in the past, the doctrine thus gradually evolved could not fail to have a very strong impact on the Forestry Acts promulgated by Parliament in the past 35 years.
The second half of the book is concerned with forest law in the overseas territories of the United Kingdom. Part IV gives remarkably fully documented studies on Kenya, Tanganyika, Cyprus, Nigeria, the Gold Coast, British Guiana, the Fiji Isles and Northern Rhodesia (the latter four countries being dealt with by H. A. Douglas, R. R. Taylor, G.W.G. Cattle and A.P.H. Hamilton respectively). Part III contains a general description of the conditions under which forest laws were framed for the colonial territories that have been, or are still being, governed by Britain. The author stresses the main land abuses prevalent in the past and still obtaining, leading to forest degradation or destruction, and describes methods of protecting forests against such abuses particularly, of course, by reservation and circumscribing, regulating or eliminating rights of user burdening them. At the end of this section (Chapter 44), there is a model text of an Ordinance, obviously conceived of merely as an ideal law but which, with the commentary on it, is very useful. Mr. Gordon's general remarks on forest law could be read and digested with profit by foresters of many countries where similar problems still exist and who seek to formulate legislation that will enable them to solve such problems, while at the same time implementing sound forest policies.
The author is rightfully surprised that foresters in countries where there was as yet no declared forest policy or previous forest law, were able not only to frame but also to have accepted, sometimes very successfully, uniform policies and laws suited to the needs of each territory. He attributes this success in general to the fact that, in most of the countries concerned, land law was not highly evolved, and the ownership of most of the forests was either undetermined or considered as vested in the State. This is perhaps a weak point, because it is not clear that land law (naturally in the broad sense and most frequently in the form of tradition transmitted orally rather than by custom) did not actually exist in these countries. For instance, the very complex principles generally recognized by all Moslem countries and which constitute law, apply not only to privately-owned land but also to land without any specific ownership (vacant land). European-style laws have been superimposed on such local law in some countries; one cannot even say categorically that they are Anglo-Saxon laws because the foresters who proposed them had been partly trained in the forestry schools of Continental Europe and some features, such as the right of transaction or dealings in forested land, afford particularly striking evidence of this influence.
While the superimposed laws have become part of the law of the land wherever the old land law had some affinity with them, the failure in application of certain provisions may perhaps also be explained from this starting point.
Errors of detail can be gradually corrected, and it can be said that if there is the manpower to enforce it, a poor law may be sometimes better than no law at all. These considerations should however inspire caution and thorough study whenever an attempt is to be made to codify into a complete body of forest law, individual laws or even mere customs relating to land ownership or usufruct. It is not surprising that, in many countries, there are at least two land laws governing vacant land to which no private person holds title, and particularly forests - the official law of the land on the one hand, and on the other the law recognized by the tribes, communities, families and individuals, which is the only law actually holding good.
The goal of foresters is not only to bring these two laws into line with one another, but to harmonize them in such a manner that they may become the instrument of sound forest policies.
This is only one of the thoughts that comes to mind from the reading of Mr. Gordon's book. Each page suggests many others, and that is why the reading of this book is heartily recommended, despite perhaps the dryness of the subject-matter, which is delightfully relieved by the author's clear and sometimes lightly mischievous manner of presentation.
