Florida National Forests

FLORIDA'S storied past is a drama of many civilizations written over a period of four centuries. It is made up of many chapters contributed by the Indian, the Spaniard, the Frenchman, the Englishman, and the American. Here was founded the first settlement on this continent to be colonized permanently by the white race. Spain had built a mansion for her Governor at St. Augustine 20 years before the Pilgrim Fathers set foot upon Plymouth Rock.

The discovery of Florida in itself was one of the most romantic episodes in a colorful era of world history. The account of the courtly old Governor of Puerto Rico, Juan Ponce de Leon, and his band of cavaliers searching for the legendary waters which would restore youth to those who bathed in them reflects the adventurous spirit of the age. Although Ponce de Leon and his followers sought in vain for the Fountain of Youth, their journey was justified. They called the country Florida either because of its discovery at the time of the Floral Feast (Pascua Florida) or because of the abundance of flowers in the new land. At the time of its discovery Florida was believed to be rich in gold, and there were fabulous accounts of rivers glittering with diamonds.

Florida's memories are many colored, for every manner of man has walked through the pages of her history. Cavaliers and grandees in Spanish galleons sought bullion and gold. Pirates and freebooters sacked and plundered with oaths and bloodshed. Black-robed priests marched up and down in mission gardens reciting their breviaries. Here the peaceful tones of the angelus bell rang out, while the roll of cannon was heard, and the black flag flew with the French and Spanish flags on Florida's coast. These pages of early history show the daring exploits of steel-clad cavaliers and the no less valiant and chivalrous deeds of savage chieftains.

Peril and strife and hardship have passed, and the succeeding centuries have seen the creation and growth of a new empire from the unbroken forests Ponce de Leon discovered in 1513. Man has pushed back the forests, but they have resisted even the fury of war and the white man's greed. The million and a half acres of national-forest lands in Florida have been part of the background of four centuries of colorful history. Moss-hung trees, now centuries old and with branches which trail the ground, stood sentinel here in the years when Nature reigned supreme before the white man came. They have survived the era of discovery, the adventures of immigration, the pressure of exploitation, and the demands of industrialism.

WATER CLEAR AS CRYSTAL FLOWS QUIETLY UNDER CABBAGE PALMETTOS AND MOSS-HUNG LIVE OAKS NEAR SILVER SPRINGS F—352899

THE PRIMITIVE METHOD OF LOGGING IS A FAR CRY PROM THE PRESENT DAY METHODS F—226287

CYPRESS LOGS BEING REMOVED FROM LOGGING TRAIN AT MILL F—352932

EXPLOITATION OF TIMBER RESOURCES

When early explorers reached Florida, the great forests seemed rich and inexhaustible, and were a factor in bringing white men to settle this country. Along the ocean's shore line, from the southern end, where the mangrove forests stood at the water's edge and held back the sea, to the northernmost part of the State, was a solid wall of trees. In 1539 DeSoto wrote: "And trees grow in the fields without planting and dressing them, and are as big and rancke as though they grew in gardens digged and watered." Such descriptions of limitless forests excited the interest of those European countries where forests had been reduced to the minimum.

The Indians and early explorers left the virgin forests practically untouched, but with the coming of the settlers, exploitation began. Wooden vessels and sailing ships found great need for pitch and tar as well as timber from the piney woods. Ships loaded with forest products began to leave Florida for far ports of the world.

Improvements in machinery and establishment of large mills brought the lumber industry of the United States to full headway about the middle of the last century. As the first cut of pine in the more thickly settled coast regions and the timber in the Lake States began to be exhausted, the lumber industry moved south and the forests in the pine belt were cut over with little thought for the future. Exploitation of Florida's forests increased at a rapid rate with the establishment of railroads and the improvement of seaports. The market for naval stores and other products created by the World War accelerated the rate of forest destruction. Fires were allowed to run through the cut-over areas, thereby destroying the seedlings and Nature's only chance for reestablishing the forests.

After the World War, renewed activity and increased land values created a "boom." Great road building and construction programs brought another unusual drain on Florida's natural resources, so that now most of the 22,000,000 acres of forest land in Florida have been cut over or culled. The virgin forests of today are mostly in the swamps, and under improved economic conditions these are rapidly being harvested.