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PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

AMERICAN FORESTRY CONGRESS

WASHINGTON:
Gipson Bros., PRINTERS AND BOOKBINDERS.

1889.

Norr.—The American Forestry Congress, whether inviting persons to read papers
from its platform or publishing those papers afterwards in connection with its proceed-
ings, is not to be understood as endorsing the views expressed or adopting them as its
own. The Congress offers its platform, in a liberal spirit, for the purpose of promoting
a free and full discussion of all questions of importance connected with the subject of
Forestry.

The Committee of Publication regret the delay which has occurred in presenting the
transactions of the Congress to the public in the present form.

NEXT MEETING.

The next meeting of the American Forestry Congress will be held at Philadelphia,
in Horticultural Hall, beginning on Tuesday evening, October 15th, 1889, and closing
on Friday evening, October 18th.

All persons desiring to present papers should notify Mr. Herbert Welsh, Chairman
of the Local Committee on Speakers, 1305 Arch street, Philadelphia, or Mr. J. B.
Harrison, Corresponding Secretary, at least two weeks before the time of meeting.

Wasuincton, D. C., June 21, 1889.

CONTENTS.

PAGE,
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PAPERS AND ADDRESSES :
Advantages and Limitations of the Colorado System. By Edgar T. Ensign.......... 25
Rain-fall of the Pacific Slope and the Western States and Territories. By Gen’l
PTE POORIE 2126.5 5 Van Gra dco. canes natn uated Sade sow acs joes Mona Mioues oe cain yeh nts os eel nea 26
A Plea for Rocky Mountain Forests. By Edgar T. Ensign...............0.00.0 00000. 0 31
Srmemeceinry Catiogh:. » Bey Ne EE. Vglostor 6. occcccie set siceccnectovsesssareccesvsroersence 33
The Interest of the Individual in Forestry in View of the Present Condition of the
Merce sTLerCntoe: Ey. CHALlGd- MODE sci. 3..coucasswads (acivs sbassascevessuccedcecestetbecostse 36
Notes of Some of the Forest Features of Florida, with Items of Tree Growth in
Senet y ORG) Mbttd., Mba CHAE Ween 2 oi sco ave oy vuncckisunniet sccuduewasusendedeigaccosstons 38
Free Lumber and Forestry. By Adolph Leué................ccecsecssccsscsseceee eevee eecee 41
@uple Parks and Public Forests. By M. G. Kern..........2.. cccscncoresuscerecesecceane 42
Forestry and National Welfare. By Martin Conrad ...............:ccccsseseseeceeseeeseeens 43
Forest Fires in Northern Canada. By Robert Bell...............c.ceccseeececeecesecsecseces 50

OFFIC Bis

President, Governor James A. Braver, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Vice Presidents—H. G. Jony, Quebec, Canada.
J. D. W. Frenou, Boston, Mass.
Cuartes Mour, Mobile, Ala.
HERBERT WeELSH, Philadelphia, Pa.

GEORGE Parsons, Denver, Col.
Recording Secretary, N. H. Eeizston, Washington, D. C.
Corresponding Secretary, J. B. Harrison, Franklin Falls, N. H.

Treasurer, H, M. Fisurer, Philadelphia, Pa.

CoMMITTEES.

Committee on Legislation—N. H. Eatzston, Washington, D. C.
E. T. Enstan, Colorado Springs, Col.
H. M. Fisuer, Philadelphia, Pa.
Hersert Wetss, Philadelphia, Pa.
Joun E. Hoxszs, North Berwick, Me.

Committee on Arbor Day—B. G. NortHrop, Madison, Conn.
N. H. Eaixzsron, Washington, D. C.
J. B. Paster, Cincinnati, O.

Committee on Publication—N. H. Eaueston, Washington, D. C.
J. B. Harrison, Franklin Falls, N. H.
H. M. Fisuer, Philadelphia, Pa.

AnnuaL Mempersuip, $2. Lire Mempersuip, $100.

CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS

OF THE

AMERICAN FORESTRY CONGRESS.

ArticLE I. This Association shall be known as the American For-
estry Congress.

Arricte II. The objects of this Congress shall be the discussion
of subjects relating to tree-planting ; the conservation, management,
and renewal of forests; the climatic and other influences that affect
their welfare; the collection of forest statistics, and the advance-
ment of educational, legislative, or other measures tending to the
promotion of these objects. It shall specially endeavor to centralize
the work done and diffuse the knowledge gained.

ArticLE III. Any person may be elected a member of this Con-
gress upon the recommendation of two members and the payment
of two dollars. The annual dues shall be two dollars.

ArticLE IV. The officers of this Congress, to be elected at the
annual meeting, are as follows: President, five Vice-Presidents,
Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretary, Treasurer, and an
Executive Committee, consisting of these officers and five members in
addition.

ArticLE V. The President shall preside at all meetings of the
Congress in General Session, and deliver an annual address at the
close of his term.

Articte VI. The President, Vice-Presidents, Secretaries, Treas-
urer, and five other persons to be chosen annually, shall constitute
an Executive Committee for the transaction of such business as may
be required by this Constitution or by a vote of the Congress.

ArticLE VII. The Recording Secretary shall keep a record of the
proceedings of the Congress, and shall be custodian of all docu-
ments, books, and collections ordered to be preserved.

ArticLE VIII. The Corresponding Secretary shall conduct the
correspondence of the Congress.

ArtiIcLE IX. The Treasurer shall have charge cf all funds, and
pay out the same on the direction of the Executive Committee.

x 5

6

ArtTIcLE X. The Congress at any regular meeting, or its Execu-
tive Committee in the intervals between its meetings, may appoint
such local or special committees as may be deemed proper, and shall
define their duties.

ArticLe XI. The annual meeting of the Congress shall be in
the month of August, September or October, or at such times and
places as shall be determined by a vote in General Session or by the
Executive Committee.

ArticLe XII. At each annual meeting there shall be an election
of officers for the ensuing year, and they shall remain in office until
others are chosen. In cases of vacancies occurring in the intervals
between the annual meetings they may be filled by the Executive
Committee until others are selected. In case of absence of an officer
at a regular meeting his place may be deemed vacant.

ArticLE XIII. The officers of States, Territories, Provinces, or
Local Forestry Associations, or their delegates, or the delegates of
any Government, may participate in the proceedings of the Congress
as Honorary Members.

ArticLE XIV. This Constitution may be amended by a two-thirds
vote of the members present at any annual meeting.

BY-LAWS.
1. Papers or abstracts of papers to be read must be sent two weeks
before any meeting, for classification, to the Corresponding Secretary.

2. The following classification of subjects is adopted for the read-
ing of papers:

Section A. Forest Planting, Forest Management, Forest Proper,
Preservation of Forests.

Section L. Forest Economy, Technology, and Statistics.
Section C. Applied Science and Climatology, General Topics.

3. Contributors who are present shall have the preference in read-
ing their papers.

4. Any member shall be entitled to the privilege of using any
books or documents, not of record, at the discretion of the Record-
ing Secretary.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING

OF THE

AMERICAN FORESTRY CONGRESS.

CLEVELAND, OHIO.

The Seventh Annual Meeting of the American Forestry Congress was held pro forma
at Cleveland, Ohio, on the 16th day of August, 1888, and adjourned to meet at Atlanta,
Georgia, on the 5th day of December following.

ATLANTA, GEorG1A, December 5, 1888.

The American Forestry Congress met this day at Atlanta, Ga., in the Hall of Repre-
sentatives, at 3 o’clock P.M. It was called to order by the President, Hon. C. R.
Pringle, and opened with prayer by Rev. James Poindexter. The Congress was hardly
organized when a committee from the Southern Forestry Congress, then assembled in
the Senate Chamber, Atlanta, appeared and presented the following resolutions, which
had been adopted by that body:

Whereas it is important to the success of forestry interests that efforts for this cause
should be concentrated, be it

Resolved, By the Southern Forestry Congress, That application be and hereby is
made to the American Forestry Congress for permission to merge this Association and
add its membership to theirs.

Resolved, That hereafter there should be only one general association or forestry
congress, and that organizations in the several States having this great public bene-
faction in charge are requested to correspond and unite with the American Forestry
Congress.

On motion, the following resolutions were immediately adopted :

Resolved, That the request of the Southern Forestry Congress for union with this
Association be acceded to, and that the members of that Association be, and they are,
hereby elected members of this Association.

Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed by the President to notify the South-
ern Forestry Congress of this action, and to invite its members to unite with us at
once and participate in our proceedings.

The President appointed as the Committee of Notification Messrs. N. H. Egleston,
Geo. W. Minier, J. D. Lyman, Thos. D. Edge, and Leo Weltz. The Committee at-
tended to the discharge of their duty at once, and returned with the announcement
that the members of the Southern Forestry Congress would join this body immediately.

A few minutes before four o’clock the members of the Southern Forestry Congress
entered the hall where the American Forestry Congress was sitting. Their appearance
was greeted with hearty applause, and a cordial address of welcome was made by the
President.

THE UNITED CONGRESS.

The first business transacted by the joint body was the appointment of the following
Committee on Credentials: Messrs. E. T. Ensign, N. H. Egleston, and G. H. Waring.

A Committee on Business was appointed, consisting of Governor Bullock, Major S.
Root, and Hon. B. E. Fernow.

8

DELEGATES PRESENT.

The delegates to the joint assembly were :

Alabama—Charles Mohr.

Connecticut—W. D. Smith.

Colorado—Hon. Edgar T. Ensign.

District of Columbia—Gen. A. W. Greely, B. E. Fernow, N. H. Egleston.

Florida—Mrs. Ellen Call Long, Mrs. Mary Stockton Young, Hon. D. F. Hammond,
Hon. B. J. Shipman, Hon. W. Curry, Hon. W. C. Zimmerman, Colonel N. Fitzgerald,
Hon. George W. Wilson, Hon. Wm. James, Hon. D. U. Fletcher.

Georgia—Hon. ©. R. Pringle, Major Sidney Root, Hon. R. B. Bullock, Hon. Nelson
Tifft, Hon. Theo. Schumann, Hon. R. J. Redding, Hon. B. D. Hardaway, Hon. G. H.
Waring, Hon. Charles H. Smith, Dr. Samuel Hape, Hon. A. G. Haygood, and Hon. W.
J. Northin.

Illinois—George W. Minier.

Kentucky—Hon. W. B. Macy, Hon. A. H. Logan, Hon. W. T. Knott, Hon. T. T.
Garrard, Hon. A. M. Braun.

Massachusetts—J. D. W. French, Nathaniel T. Kidder.

New Hampshire—J. B. Harrison, Hon. John D. Lyman.

Ohio—Hon. Leo Weltz, Rey. James Poindexter.

Pennsylvania—Hon. Thomas J. Edge, Hon. J. 8. Trexler, Hon. H. F. James, and
Miss Mary B. Coulston.

South Carolina—Hon. John Lawton, Dr. T. J. McKee, Hon. Geo. F. Atkinson, Hon.
G. H. Gramling, Hon. J. A. Gramling.

Professor 8. J. Rauner, of St. Petersburg, Russia, and Judge J. G. Henderson, of
Georgia, were invited to participate in the proceedings of the Congress.

The Corresponding Secretary, Mr. Fernow, read his report, as follows:

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY.

The past year has been among the most fruitful in the work of our Association, and
may well be termed the crisis in its existence. It seems that the propayanda which
we have carried on for now six years is beginning, if not to bear fruit exactly, yet to
show the fruit blossoms which carry the promise finally of a useful harvest.

The interest in our work has increased everywhere and has manifested itself in all
parts of the country from Maine to California. AsI shall be able to show you more
particularly by the report of our New England Committee, there will be held in Maine
within two weeks a large Forestry Convention, called not by ‘‘ forestry cranks,” but
by solid substantial business men and lumber men, for the purpose of determining a
policy for that State.

This week in New York the Academy of Sciences devoted one of their meetings to
the forestry problem, and I understand that the revival of the New York Forestry As-
sociation is being prepared for this winter, while the Adirondack Forest Commission,
although for various reasons it has not accomplished what might have been expected,
is still striving to put into practical operation some of our demands.

The Pennsylvania State Forestry Association, inaugurated about two years ago, has
prospered in membership and influence, and, with the sympathy of her Governor to aid,
has succeeded in having a Forest Commission appointed to formulate the necessary
forest laws for the State,

‘* Forest Leaves,” the little publication of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association, has
become a useful means of keeping the interest in the State alive, and in regard to it I
shall further on recommend the action of this Congress.

Michigan, the great lumbering State, has also awakened this year to action with re-
gard to her forest interests, and has created a Commission for the purpose of determin-
ing a policy for the State.

Hlinois, after our Springfield meeting, fulfilled the object for which we meet by con-
centrating her interests in forestry in a State Forestry Association.

Kentucky has joined this year the number of States which think that their forestry in-
terests need looking after. I was also present at the first occasion on which Tennessee,
during her first Chautauqua, chose to present the subject to her people, by invitation
of her Governor.

Texas has seen fit to inaugurate a Forestry Association. Colorado, under her enthu-
siastic and assiduous Forest Commissioner, is developing a forestry system for her needs.

9

From California I have reports which speak of the interest in forestry matters as an
infection that has taken hold of the people in all parts of the State.

The report of the Arbor-day Committee, the assiduous chairman of which, Dr.
Northrop, of Connecticut, is unfortunately prevented by an accident from being here,
will show that the educational value of this institution is now recognized in almost
every State.

May we not take at least some credit and pride of our propaganda for these results ?
Even if the direct influence of this Congress may not be recognized in all these mani-
festations of interest in forestry matters, the indirect influence exerted through the
work of years before will not be denied.

Speaking now of the work of this Congress during the year since its last meeting, the
principal effort has been to impress that body of men who are the least impressionable
of any, the National Congress, with the necessity of responding to the requirements of
our national timber interests.

While in former years the attempts to produce effects between the meetings were of
a desultory and uncertain character, we have this year for the first time worked for one
definite purpose; and although the result has not been equal to the exertion, as it rarely
is in the world of politics, we have thrust the first spade into the ground for digging the
foundation for our National Forest Department.

Mr. Egleston, from the Committee on Legislation, will give you a history of these
attempts to impress Congress.

The bill for an administration of the National timber-domain which I presented to
you at the Springfield meeting was subsequently considerably modified in its details
and introduced in both Houses.

Petitions were sent out and campaign papers, of which I have sets for your use at
this meeting, were distributed, and newspapers helped the measure along by favorable
comment.

If we did not succeed in getting even a satisfactory consideration of our propositions,
this was not our fault.

That we struck a stone in our first thrust of the spade need not discourage us from
continuing the digging. I may remind you that it took fifteen years to pass the Inter-
state Commerce Bill. There is still hope that a Forest Administration may be inaugu-
ated before the national forest domain is all disposed of.

The Congress for the first time also participated in an exhibition, embracing an op-
portunity for impressing certain facts upon a throng of people who would congregate
at such an exhibit. I had prepared and sent to the Cincinnati Exposition a chart, giv-
ing in large type and brief language an account of the condition of our forestry in-
terests. There was also sent to the Exposition the section of a tulip tree, with the an-
nual rings marked, and corresponding to these there was attached an historic chart,
which Mr. Egleston prepared at my request, showing the prominent incidents of history
through which this tree had lived since the time of Queen Elizabeth’s accession to the
throne. In this manner the mind of the beholder was strikingly impressed with the
length of time which it took to grow the forest which we now wastefully squander. A
third exhibit, which was connected with these two, consisted in the model of a tree-
planting machine, capable of planting twenty to thirty thousand trees per day, which
promises to revolutionize forest planting on the prairies.

I come now to the internal working of the Congress. At the last meeting I consented
to act once more as Secretary of your Association, on the condition that an improve-
ment in the financial aspect of its affairs should be effected. Consequently a Com-
mittee on Finance was formed, consisting of the two Secretaries and the Treasurer. A

‘circular letter was sent to the members, many of whom were in arrears, ask-
ing them to pay up their dues, or by paying $10 in lieu of all dues to become life
members. At the same time it was proposed that the $10 life-membership should
after this be discontinued, and the collection of a Permanent Fund attempted by cre-
ating Patronships at $100 each, the subseriptions to which should not be called for
until 100 such patrons were found. Although members were especially requested to
interest themselves in advancing this proposition by asking those of their friends who,
although lacking the time to aid our cause with their personal attention, should be
able to contribute from their pocket towards its success, the result has so far been
meager. There have been so far received only eight obligations for Patronships. The
names of those who have obliged themselves to contribute to this fund, under the con-
dition that one hundred could be found to assume a similar obligation, are as follows:
Joseph 8. Fay, of Massachusetts; Abbot Kinney, of California; Morris K. Jessup, of
New York; A. A. Moss, of Philadelphia; Albert Lewis, of Bear Creek, Pa.; Hon. C.
R. Pringle, of Georgia; Martin Conrad, of Chicago; B. E. Fernow, of Washington.

The fact that four of the officers of the Congress appear in this short list might in-
spire confidence in the ultimate success of their canvass.

Twenty-eight of the old members availed themselves of the privilege of becoming

10

life-members, so that the number of life-members is now seventy-one. One life-
member, the celebrated Dr. C. R. Agnew, of New York, died during the year. His loss
is to us of special moment, for the reason that he was one of those who spontaneously,
without any solicitation, joined our ranks from conviction of the value of our work.

The collection of members’ dues and initial fees yielded $122. Fifty-six members
resigned, five of whom paid up their arrears; eighty-nine members were dropped, in-
cluding all of those in arrears for two years; to these must be added five whose ad-
dresses cannot be found, leaving active annual members thirty-two, or altogether, with ,
life-members, a roll of one hundred and three members.

In addition, I have to record a donation of $25 from Mr. Joseph S. Fay, of Woods
Holl, Mass., being the fifth donation made by this Nestor of practical forestry in the
United States. Ido not need to sing his praises, which the pine trees he planted will
sing to those whocome after him. The unbounded faith of this gentleman in the ulti-
mate success of our work should induce others to aid it substantially as he has done
to hasten its progress.

The expenditures, as usual, have been for printing mostly, and for stationery and
postage, as none of the officers of the Congress receive pay or even have their expenses
refunded.

The expenditures which are detailed in the Treasurer’s account amounted to $217.24,
and the balance remaining on hand, $275.01—a better balance than we have ever had
before.

As I am about to retire from the stewardship of the affairs of this Congress, which
have been entrusted to me for the last five years, I have thought it of interest to re-
view, in a condensed form, the cost by which we have accomplished, whatever it may
be, in creating a proper sentiment for forestry in the country.

I find that the total collections of the Congress, during the six years of its existence,
amounted to $2,118.80. This amount was made up by $1,696 of membership fees,
dues, and life-memberships, in which 274 members at different periods participated.
Three men made donations to the amount of $135; ten men raised a publication fund
of $195. Sale of publications and advertisements yielded $112.80.

The total expenditure during these six years was $1,841, of which for printing was
paid to the amount of $1,220.84; stationery required $200.76; postage and express
charges consumed $303.25; while $119 was paid for stenographers, clerk-hire, and
sundry expenses.

It should be mentioned, however, that the expense of the first two meetings, in Cin-
cinnati and Montreal, were mostly paid for by private funds outside of those of the
Society.

It will certainly not be charged that the Congress has accomplished its work at a
heavy expense. Economy has been the watchword in the expenses of the Congress,
as it is the aim of the reform for which we are striving. This economy necessarily has
retarded the work, but I am not prepared to find fault with the slow progress. There
is a time in matters of economic reform when the people are ready to acknowledge its
need and then will grapple with it. Often the efforts to produce a premature solution
prove abortive; the powder is wasted too early in the action, and those who storm the
fortress may have to abandon it again for lack of ammunition.

As the people get educated to understand the question which we place before them,
they learn how to answer it. This education is the object of this Congress, and you
know that educating is different from cramming ; it requires time.

During the existence of the Congress we have held nine meetings, namely: besides
the large initial meeting in Cincinnati in April, 1882, and an extraordinary meeting in
Washington city, seven annual meetings in Montreal, St. Paul, Saratoga, Boston,
Denver, Springfield, Ill., and Cleveland; the last was a formal meeting, which was
adjourned to the present meeting in Atlanta in order to satisfy the requirements of
our Constitution, which demands that the annual meeting shall take place in August,
September, or October.

The papers read at Cincinnati were published in various ways. Those of the Mon-
treal meeting were printed in a special edition by the Montreal Herald. Through the
courtesy of the Canadian government we were enabled for the first time to present in
volume form the papers read at St. Paul.

The best papers read at Washington were published in a pamphlet by the Department
of Agriculture. Those read in Saratoga and Boston were by a special effort printed in
a volume which will rank favorably with any forestry publication in this country.

For the meetings at Denver and Springfield we have only been able to secure sep-
arate prints of the reports as they appeared in the local newspapers, and several good
papers remain unpublished. 4

There were also published in 1884 three bulletins—a tentative beginning to see
whether a periodical forestry publication of moderate size was desirable.

Besides these publications and the campaign papers mentioned before, the calls for

11

the meetings were of such a nature, setting forth the character and methods of our
reform movement, as to induce their reprint and editorial comment in many newspa-
pers; and thus the indirect influence exerted by our meetings was accomplished, while
the direct influence upon the communities where we met has invariably borne results
in advancing favorable legislation, formation of local forestry societies, and spreading
interest in the subject among the people of the State.

We have done the pioneer work, and now let us hope that a new era opens with this
meeting.

The readiness with which the Governors of several States have responded to the in-
vitation to send delegates allows us to expect that there is in every section of the coun-
try an intelligent conception dawning that the recommendations of forest management
and forest preservation are matters not simply for the theorist, the enthusiast, and the
crank to talk about, but for the statesman, economist, and landed proprietor and prac-
tical man to act upon.

In laying down at this meeting my position as your Secretary, allow me to say that
I have at all times acknowledged my incapacity to advance the interests entrusted to
me as they ought to be advanced, but I do claim for myself and for all those who have
initiated this movement and kept it alive in spite of many drawbacks, opposition, and
lack of interest—I claim that we have been the plowmen faithfully preparing the
ier and keeping it in condition for those that shall sow the crop and reap the

arvest.

Let us hope that with the new era, which I predict, the right sower will be found to
crop the ground which we have plowed.

After the reading of the report the Congress took a recess until evening.

EVENING SESSION.

There was a good attendance at the evening session. Rev. Dr. Tucker opened the
meeting with prayer. Governor Gordon, who was to deliver the address of welcome,
being unavoidably absent, Hon. A. S. Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives,
was invited to welcome the Congress. Mr. Clay said:

Lapizs AND GENTLEMEN OF THE AMERICAN Forestry Coneress: I noticed in this
morning’s Constitution that the Southern Forestry Congress and the American Con-
gress would convene at 7.30 o’clock in the House of Representatives, and that addresses
of welcome would be delivered by Mayor Cooper on the part of the city, and Governor
Gordon on the part of the State. Iam sorry to say to the Forestry Congress that our
distinguished Governor sent for me to-day and informed me that owing to a serious
throat trouble he could not be present this evening, and asked me to make this state-
ment to your honorable body and to make a few remarks of welcome to your distin-
guished Association. I exceedingly regret that you will be deprived of the privilege of
being entertained by our Governor. But let me say in his behalf and in behalf of the
State of Georgia that every association or society that has for its object the material
advancement of our common country always finds a hearty welcome in the homes of
Georgians. It should, indeed, be gratifying to the people to see so distinguished a
class of citizens banding together with no other purpose than to build up and advance
the interests of our country. Georgians have felt the need of your Association. We
need no scientist to tell us that the overflow of our streams, the washing of our soil
to the great detriment of our farming interests, are caused largely by the wholesale
and indiscriminate destruction of our forests. I understand it to be the object of your
Association not only to inculcate the importance of the existing forests, but to impress
upon the people the importance of planting out trees that future generations may reap
the benefit of your labors. The State of Georgia encourages the importance of your
mission. and extends to you a hearty welcome. Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the
American Forestry Congress, we throw open our doors, we introduce you to our citi-
zens, and welcome you to our State.

In the absence of Mayor Cooper, who was to welcome the delegates on the part of
Atlanta, Major Sidney Root, in a few witty and appropriate words, extended the hos-
pitality of Atlanta to the visiting delegates.

The addresses of welcome were replied to by Colonel C. R. Pringle. He said:

Laprés anp GENTLEMEN: After having received such words of welcome from the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, in behalf of the State, and from Major Root,
in behalf of the city, it is with pleasure that I express for this Congress our sincere
thanks for the unbounded courtesy with which we have been received. We feel that

it is no mean honor to be welcomed to this, the greatest city of the South, whose hos-
pitality to strangers has already become proverbial.

12

And to the citizens of Atlanta I would say we feel honored at being your guests.

We think if there is a State in these United States whose hospitality would honor
us, that State is your own beloved Georgia, for by her invitation we are here to hold
this session, and by her Speaker of the House of Representatives we have been wel-
comed in his own royal style. Again thanking you for these courtesies, and with a
deep sense of gratitude for your kindness, we will gladly accept your hospitality in be-
ing welcomed to Georgia and to Georgia’s capital.

Mrs. Lollie Belle Wylie read a poem, appropriate for the occasion, composed by M.
M. Folsom.

The President’s annual address was then delivered by President C. R. Pringle. It
gave in detail the aims and objects of the Congress; the past history of forestry laws
and organizations, and also what the future had in store. It was quite lengthy, cover-
ing the ground thoroughly. He spoke with great hope of the future, noticing the
growth of the forestry sentiment as an omen of good.

As this address has been published separately, it is not reproduced here. Copies may
be obtained by application to President Pringle, Atlanta Georgia. ‘

Upon invitation, General Greely, Chief of the United States Signal Service, made a
brief address, reviewing his connection with the forestry industry. He closed with
touching words, telling how he was grasped from the jaws of death in the far Arctic
regions, and that returning home, next to once more meeting his loved ones, he wel-
comed the sight of the soughing pines as they towered their heads to the blue sky.
At the conclusion of his remarks the meeting adjourned.

PROCEEDINGS OF THURSDAY, Dec. 6.

The Congress met in the Hall of the Young Men’s Christian Association at 9 o’clock,
and was opened with prayer by Prof. Egleston.
A report of the Committee on Order of Business was read and accepted.

RECORDING SECRETARY.

In the absence of Mr. Bell, the Recording Secretary, Prof. Egleston was elected tem-
porary Recording Secretary.

A letter was received from the managers of the Augusta Exposition inviting members
of this Congress to attend the Exposition. In reply to it the following resolution was
adopted: Resolved, That the thanks of this body are given to the managers cf the Au-
gusta Exposition, and that those members who can attend the Exposition are desired to
do so in a body, and as representatives of this Congress.

A communication was received from Governor Gordon inviting the Congress to visit
the new State capitol.

The Principal of the Public Schools invited the Congress to visit the schools and to
participate in the exercises of Arbor Day on Friday. The invitation was accepted.

Letters of invitation were also received from President Bumstead, of Atlanta Uni-
versity, and from Spellman Institute.

Letters were read also from Gov. Oglesby, of Illinois; Hon. B. G. Northrop, Hon.
J. H. Morgan, of Canada; John T. Best, Superintendent of Schools in Florida; Silas
T. Fox, of the Agricultural Society of Pennsylvania, and Hon. J. Stcrling Morton, of
Nebraska, expressing their regret at not being able to attend the meeting of the Con-
gress and testifying their great interest in its objects.

The letters were received with thanks, and the communication of Mr. Morton was
ordered to be placed on the records.

LETTER OF MR. MORTON.
Cuitcaco, Dec. 3, 1888.

Dear Sir: Business affairs here compel me to remain and to deprive myself the
pleasure of attending the Forestry Congress at Atlanta. My regret is all the more in-
tense because I had meditated inflicting upon the Congress ‘‘ The Biography of an
Infant,” and under that title to take up the history of the manufacture of lumber in
the United States. It began in 1620, when the Puritans swung the first axes that felled
the grand trees of our primeval forests, for the purposes of manufacturing boards out

13

of which to build the first civilized homes on this Continent. In 1797 the Government
placed a tax, 7.¢., a tariff duty for protection, on imported lumber of five per centum ad
valorem. That was intended perhaps more for revenue than for protection, however.
But in 1872 and in 1888 we find “‘ the infant industry” of making lumber out of which
to build human homes and marts and places of worship and schools protected by a
tariff of $2 a thousand feet board measure. What for? To shut ont the products of
foreign forests. To make lumber scarcer. To limit supply. To enchance artificially
the price of lumber to those who wish lumber out of which to build homes, by shutting
out the lumber of Canada. It kills competition from foreign forests. It guarantees
the monopoly of the American market to the lumber lords of the Northwest, and com-
pels the home-builders of the Northwest to pay those monopolists a high, arti ficia
price for their forest products. When our Government thus pays a bounty of $2a
thousand for the destruction of forests, what can forestry do or a Congress of Forestry
accomplish to delay devastation ?

The Government offers a bounty, first, for the denudation of our woodlands. Then,
with singular inconsistency, another bounty of 160 acres of land, under the Timber-
Culture Act, for the planting and maintenance of a mimic forest of ten acres.

Lumber should be admitted to the United States duty free. That would increase our
supply. Demand remaining the same, it would lower lumber prices, and conserve our
timber-lands.

The U.S. Senate Tariff Bill now pending proposes to leave the tariff on Jumber,
but it kindly puts acorns on the free list. Thisis ‘‘a step towards” free lumber.
It is the only encouragement for forestry so far given. Three or four hundred years
hence, if we all plant our untaxed acorns, we shall have demonstrated among our own
graves the verity of ‘‘ Tall oaks from little acorns grow.”

Perhaps it is ordered that the race shall destroy forests forever, and never restore
forests. The Holy Land, all the desolate Orient, once glorious in forests, luscious in
fruits and fragrant in flowers, recites man’s improvident and wicked waste of trees.

The lesson should teach America. It, when translated to the understanding, is only
a picture of our future if we also destroy, seldom conserve, and never plant great
forests. What came tothe axemen of the Orient will come to those of the Occident.
The same causes give inexorably the same results.

It is possible that the Mound Builders were destroyers of forests and that their race
perished with the trees. Then there was a long period, eons upon eons, which no man
hath any knowledge of, during which Nature reaforested this Continent from the At-
lantic to the prairies of the Northwest. It may be that the life of a race of men is
limited by the duration of the forest or woodland area which they encounter at the
beginning of their career?

But I did not intend so long a letter. Itis written hastily (in the office of my son,
Paul Morton), but it is none the less sincerely zealous in behalf of any and all measures
which may conserve or increase the forests of our common country. We use 25.000
acres of woodland as to their forest products every day. In 28 years we shall have
consumed all of the forests in the United States. Itistime to plant generally and
thoughtfully. With the forests all dead and gone, man will not long survive on the
American Continent.

Yours, J. STERLING MORTON.
To President Princtz,
American Forestry Congress, Atlanta, Georgia.

COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS.

A Committee on Resolutions was appointed, consisting of Hon. Edgar T. Ensign, of
Colorado; Hon. W. T. Knott, of Kentucky; Hon. Geo. W. Minier, of Illinois: Gov.
Rufus B. Bullock, of Georgia; Mrs. Ellen Call Long, of Florida; Hon. Chas. C. Bin-
ney, of Pennsylvania; Hon. Thomas D. Edge, of Pennsylvania; Hon. J. D. W. French,
of Massachusetts; Hon. J. B. Harrison, of New Hampshire.

REPORTS.

The Committee on Legislation, through its chairman, Prof. Egleston, reported in re-
gard to the efforts of the Committee to secure the passage of the bill for the protection
and management of the public timber lands prepared by this body at its last meeting.
The report was as follows:

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION.
THE FORESTRY BILL BEFORE CONGRESS.

Feeling that the public mind had become sufficiently informed upon the subject of
forestry to warrant an appeal to the General Government for some efficient action for

14

the preservation and proper management of the public timber lands, and that such
action was imperatively needed for the welfare of the country, this Congress, at its
meeting a year ago in Springfield, Illinois, devoted a large portion of one of its sessions
to the consideration of the subject. The Corresponding Secretary presented to view
the forestry legislation which had been proposed or carried into effect hitherto in the
several States, and read sundry bills on the subject which had been proposed. He read
also a bill which had been prepared by himself in consultation with others, entitled
‘A Bill for the Protection and Administration of the Forests on the Public Domain.”
The bill was discussed at length and was finally adopted for presentation to the
National Congress, and a committee was appointed for the purpose of laying the bill
before tiat body and securing, if possible, its passage.

In endeavoring to discharge the duty then intrusted to them the committee presented
the Memorial and Bill to both Houses of Congress in the first business days of the last
session. A more deliberate consideration of the bill than could be given it during our
meeting at Springfield having revealed some defects in it which were not then apparent,
your committee regarded themselves as only acting in the spirit of their instructions
from this body in making sundry modifications in the bill as originally prepared and
presented for your consideration, modifications designed to make the bill more effec-
tive for its purpose, while at the same time calctlated to obviate hindrances to its
passage. The Memorial, as presented to the National Congress, was as follows.

MEMORIAL OF AMERICAN FORESTRY CONGRESS AND OTHER CITIZENS TO THE 50TH
CONGRESS U. S. A.

To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled :

Your memorialists, the American Forestry Congress and citizens of the United States,
respectfully represent :

Wuereas, The present laws in regard to the public lands, so far as they relate to the
disposal of timber lands, or of the timber from the same, are entirely inadequate to
the requirements of the present state of our civilization ; are unreasonable, pernicious
and prejudicial to the best interests of this country, and have a tendency to induce
fraud, theft and perjury ;

Wuereas, Especially in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Slope region, the mining
interests in regard to material supplies, and the agricultural interest in regard to a
favorable distribution of water supply, are threatened with danger, or have already
been endangered, by the thoughtless and unnecessary destruction of the forests and
bush lands on the mountain slopes and hill-sides ;

WuerkEas, By axe, by the teeth of cattle and by fire, many millions of dollars worth
of public property have been destroyed without benefit to any one, owing to the neglect
on the part of the Government to protect the property of the people;

Wuerras, Favorable, agricultural and climatic conditions of a country are largely
dependent upon a proper amount of well distributed forest areas, and especially upon
the preseivation of the forest cover on the mountains ;

Wuereas, Such preservation cannot be had under the existing laws, nor can be ex-
pected at the hands of private individuals;

Wuereas, By the disposal of the timbered areas now in the hands of the United
States, and by their devastation under the present conditions, the power to insure
proper forest legislation passes from the people :

Therefore, The undersigned memoralists, imbued solely by a desire to further the
best interests of the country at large, most respectfully and urgently pray that you
will, without delay, give consideration to and enact as a law the subjoined Bill, which
provides for the withdrawal from entry or sale, classification and proper disposal or
administration of public forest lands, or that you provide such other legislation in the
same direction as may appear best to your honorable body.

Meantime the Committee had also sent copies of the Memorial and Bill to persons
in all parts of the country, asking their signatures to the same as memorialists, and the
return of the papers, when signed, to the Committee. These memorials or petitions,
when thus received, were placed from time to time in the hands of various Senators and
Representatives, to be presented to the two Houses of Congress with the view of thus
bringing the bill and its subject afresh to the minds of the members, and indicating to
them the wide-spread interest taken in the subject by the public at large.

The bill was referred, in the House of Representatives, to the Committee on Public
Lands, and in the Senate to the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. But your
Committee, not content with thus presenting to Congress the above-mentioned memo-
rials in support of the bill, sought to obtain additional influence in favor of it by means
of the following Circular, which was addressed to influential persons in various parts of
the country.

15

[Circular] AMERICAN Forestry ConGREss,
Wasuineton, D. C., January, 1888.

Dear Sir: The American Forestry Congress, feeling the urgent need of the speedy
action of the Government for the protection and proper management and disposal of
the public forests, adopted at its recent annual meeting a Memorial to Congress on the
subject, and accompanied it by a bill for an appropriate public act.

The need of some such action as is contemplated by the bill cannot be overestimated.
The facts which show that need are briefly but sufficiently indicated in the inclosed
memorial itself and in the accompanying slips. These and other facts relating to the
subject have been published so extensively during the last few years, and have made
such an impression upon intelligent persons throughout the country, that, if the feeling
of such persons can be properly made known to the National Congress now in session,
there seems a reasonable probability that some appropriate legislation may be secured.

The Committee to whom the Forestry Congress has given charge of its Memorial,
recognizing you as one interested in the subject, earnestly request you to address a per-
sonal letter at once to your Senator or Representative in Congress, or both, urging them
to use their influence to secure, at the present session, the passage of the bill proposed
by the Forestry Congress or one of similar import.

In bebalf of the Committee.
Very respectfully yours, N. H. EGLESTON.

The chairman of your Committee, together with your Corresponding Secretary, who
was indefatigable in his efforts to secure the adoption of the bill, had repeated inter-
views with the Committee on Public Lands, and also with the chairman of the Senate
Committee. They had interviews also with other members of Congress, as opportunity
offered, in which they endeavored to create a favorable interest in the bill. Such as-
surances of sympathy with the general features of the bill were given by members of
the Public Lands Committee, that we were hopeful for a time that it would be favor-
ably reported to the House of Representatives. That Committee, however, we soon
found, had undertaken to formulate a bill embracing the whole matter of the disposal
of the public lands, and designed to take the place of the existing timber-culture and
pre-emption acts. In the final adjustment of their bill they engrafted upon it some
features of our bill, but left out some of equal inportance, while they failed to make
any adequate provision for the efficient execution of the enactments of the bill, so far
as they were related to the preservation or regulation of the public forests. We pro-
tested against this inadequate and really impracticable treatment of the subject. We
called the attention of the public also to the defects of the Committee’s bill, and, at
our suggestion, protests against its passage and petitions for the adoption of our bill
in its place were made by many editors of newspapers and other persons of influence,
as well as by several organized bodies. The Pennsylvania Forestry Association, which
from the first had given us its aid, now joined heartily in the endeavor to prevent the
passage of a bill which, instead of promoting the interests of forestry in our country,
was calculated, by its mere semblance of doing something, to defeat our object and to
prevent, for an indefinitely long period of time, further and most desirable legislation.
The Association used all its influence in co-operation with our endeavors to secure the
passage of our bill. But all the urgency that could be brought to bear upon the sub-
ject was not sufficient to induce the Committee to make our bill in its entirety a part
of their own, or to report it as an independent measure. Had our bill shown a politi-
cal aspect or a tendency to promote the pecuniary interests of any considerable num-
ber of persons ; if it had been a scheme to take money out of the public treasury instead
of being a measure for husbanding and increasing the public wealth, doubtless we
should have received more consideration; but having no partisan or pecuniary advant-
age with which to appeal for support and aiming only at the general welfare, our bill
was not allowed a hearing outside of the Committee-room. In the Senate it did not
even get the consideration of the Committee to whom it was referred. We had one
brief conference with the chairman of the Committee and were promised a hearing by
a sub-committee, and days were assigned for the purpose, but the hearings did not take
place. During the unprecedentedly long session of nearly ten months no adequate con-
sideration was given to our memorial and biil, supported thongh they were by the
petitions of eminent men and public bodies in various parts of the land.

Such is the by no meaus pleasant report which your Committee are obliged to make
in regard to the result of their endeavors to discharge the duty imposed upon them by
your appointment. All which is respectfully submitted.

NATHANIEL H. EGLESTON,
EDGAR T. ENSIGN,
HENRY M. FISHER,
WARREN HIGLEY,
JOHN E. HOBBS,

Committee.

16

The thanks of the Congress were given to the Committee.
The New England Committee reported through Hon. John E. Hobbs, of Maine, as

follows:
REPORT OF THE NEW ENGLAND COMMITTEE.

In response to the communication of your worthy and efficient Secretary, asking for
a report of the Committee for New England on the state of affairs and prospects in New
England, Mr. John E. Hobbs, one of that Committee, gives the following statement of
facts concerning Maine, where the forestry problem which your distinguished body is
so effectually forcing upon the consideration of the American people, is now engaging
the attention of thoughtful men throughout the State, as never before.

This hopeful state of things is largely due to the influence of the Boston meeting of
the American Forestry Congress in Sept., 1885, and to the efforts of the Committee.
These have been directed chiefly toward the best means of preventing forest fires by
State legislation and by influencing public opinion through the public press.

The Maine State Grange, embracing a membership of more than 15,000 farmers, has
heartily aided the Committee in carrying forward this work. Through their united in-
fluence the Legislature, at its last session in 1886, was induced to establish an annual
Arbor-day, although certain other legislation recommended by them failed of enact-
ment. The discussion of the subject, however, in the Legislature and in the news-
papers, together with the action taken by the State Grange, has served to create a wide-
spread interest in the general subject of forest protection, which may resuit in the
enactment of judicious laws by the next Legislature.

At its annual meeting at Skowhegan in December last, the State Grange adopted, by
an unanimous vote, the report of its Committee on Forestry, which report, among other
things, recommended the adoption by that body of the Memorial of the American For-
estry Congress to the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, and
that the State Master and Secretary sign the Memorial in behalf of the State Grange
and forward the same to Congress.

This Memorial, with the accompanying bill, was presented in the Senate by Senator
Hale of this State, who takes a deep interest in the subject, and it was upon his motion
referred to the Committee on Agriculture of the Senate.

As an evidence of the great public interest already developed with reference to the
necessity of devising some method for checking the wanton destruction of forest growth
by the careless setting of fires, and for encouraging the planting and cultivation of val-
uable forest trees on the thousands of square miles of land now lying waste and worth-
less for any other use, a ‘‘call” for a State Forestry Convention, to meet at Bangor
December 18, is subjoined as a part of this report. This ‘‘ call,” which was drawn up
by Hon. George F. Talbot, of Portland, and is well worthy of perusal, has been signed
by many of the largest owners of timber lands and manufacturers of lumber in the
State; also by many of the most prominent business men, besides by many others who
have a national reputation. Among the latter are the venerable ex-Vice-President Ham-
lin, ex-Governors Robie, Connor, Davis, Plaisted, Dingley, Gov. Marble, Governor-elect
Burleigh, U. S. Senator Hale, Hon. Wm. L. Putnam.

The meetings of this Convention are to be held in connection with those of the State
Grange, which meets at Bangor at the same time. This will be one of the most notable
gatherings ever held in the State, and it is to be hoped that its influence will extend far
beyond its bounds, even from ocean to ocean and from the Gulf to the utmost tree limit
of our Northern neighbor.

JOHN E. HOBBS.
Norrx Berwior, Mr., Nov. 28, 1888.

Perhaps nothing would now contribute more to the growth and prosperity of our
State than a restoration of its forests. With a rugged soil, requiring hard and pro-
longed labor to fit it for treatment by the plow and the mowing-machine, under a
severe climate that gives us short and precarious summers and early frosts, Maine com-
petes at disadvantage with the prairie States in all agricultural productions except hay,
oats, and potatoes. Its lack of coal and iron, its distance from markets, and its inade-
quate food-supply are serious impediments to the prosecution of all branches of manu-
facture except those which its own fisheries, forests, and quarries support.

It was the extensive, almost unbroken, forest of Maine that first attracted enterpris-
ing people to settle it and make it their home. It was by marketing our forest pro-
ducts, and the shipbuilding and commerce thus developed, that our people mainly ac-
quired the wealth which they have expended in clearing lands, building roads and
railroads, dwellings and factories. The unnatural emigration to other States, and the
arrest in the rapid early growth of our own, must, we think, be chiefly attributed to
the shrinkage and destruction of our forests and the disastrous effect this destruction
had had upon all the productive industries of our people.

17

Those, however, who have most carefully studied the problem, do not attribute this
shrinkage and loss of the tree growth to the annual cutting for sale of merchantable
timber and fuel. They believe that under such operations, prudently conducted, our
forests might not only hold their own, but actually become, from decade to decade,
more valuable. The great and general loss has come about from sweeping fires, care-
lessly set or not promptly arrested, and from a thriftless management, which a wiser
public sentiment, reinforced by judicious laws, might have prevented.

It is not yet too late to arrest the process of devastation, and the restoration of nearly
the original breadth of our arboreal acreage would be so aided by favorable conditions
of climate as to require but little, if any, sowing of seeds or planting of young trees.
It is believed that two-thirds of the surface of Maine might be devoted permanently to
the growth of timber and that there would be ample acreage left for all the cultivation
and pasturage the most successful development of agriculture could demand. So to
utilize the thousands of square miles of rocky, hilly, and swampy lands in our State
would promote and not restrict agriculture by enhancing the prices of these products
of our soil and climate, which the lumbermen consume, and by moderating the ten-
dencies to long-continued droughts ; it would aid manufacturing by making more equa-
ble the flow of streams that supply their propulsive power; and it would stimulate com-
merce and shipbuilding by largely increasing the product of a bulky article of exporta-
tion, always sure of receiving a remunerative price.

The undersigned, believing that it is highly expedient to direct public attention to
the urgent necessity of doing whatever wise and combined effort may be able to do to
prevent and punish the destruction of woods by the careless setting of fires and to en-
courage the planting and preservation of timber trees, respectfully invite their fellow-
citizens throughout the State who are intere:ted in the general subject to meet at
in Bangor, on Tuesday, the 18th of December next, at two o’clock in the afternoon,
for the purpose of discussing the question of the forests in their relation to the gen-
eral industries of the people, of listening to addresses upon the subject by persons who
have made it a special study, and of deliberating upon and recommending such acts
of legislation as may be deemed necessary to encourage the planting and preservation
of timber trees, and to lessen the danger of their destruction by careless fires or wan-
ton trespass.

Informal reports from the States and Territories represented in the Congress were
now called for.

Mr. J. D. Lyman, of New Hampshire, said the forests in that State had decreased to
no great extent. Sixty per cent. of the State is now in forests.

Mr. J. D. W. French, of Massachusetts: This State stands with New Hampshire in
extent of her forests; has $1,380,000 of wood land, but little decrease. There are
1,000,000 acres of landin the State good for nothing but tree planting. We have laws for
protection of forests against fires. Mr. French said that he received a $1,000 premium,
for raising forest timber, from the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture. Arbor
Day is observed. ‘‘ We have exemption laws from taxation on forest lands under cer-
tain circumstances. The State has a society for the promotion of all agricultural
interests.” Mr. French, in closing, expressed his pleasure at being present at a union
meeting between the North and the South and said that the first friendly handshake he
received was from a South Carolina delegate.

Mr. Walter D. Smith, of Connecticut: ‘‘ 'The question of forestry should be brought
in with common-school education. Children can be more easily interested and in-
structed than older persons.”

J. B. Harrison, of New Hampshire, reported for Vermont: ‘‘ The area of forests is
not decreasing as rapidly as would be supposed. There is a deterioration of tree pro-
ducing land. Attention to forestry in detail is needed. Much harm is done by fire.”

No delegate was present from New York, but Mr. W. H. Hale, a press representative,
said: ‘‘ Albany was at one time one of the greatest lumbering marts in the United
States. A law is in force against lumber speculation. Arbor Day is observed. The
press of the State is in smpathy with the forestry interests.”

Thomas D. Edge, of Pennsylvania: ‘‘ Many forest laws are in force, and Arbor Day
is observed. The government and forestry organizations are willing to act, butare in
darkness as to the definite course to pursue. Mr. C. C. Binney was present, sent by
the Forestry Association of Pennsylvania to watch and gain information from this

18

Congress in regard to the passage of laws relative to advancing foresty. He said that
the association he represented was willing to act but did not know what todo. They
have been instrumental in furthering the observance of Arbor Day.

District of Columbia: Gen. A. W. Greely spoke for the United States at large. No
question, he said, is of more vital interest than this. It is difficult to impress upon the
people the importance of planting trees, when they are springing up around them.
Few are willing to sacrifice the present for the future. The authorities in Washington
should bring the importance of the subject before the people. Much can be learned
from Europe on the subject. They have for years observed forestry laws.

Mr. Fernow also spoke briefly, directing his remarks to the forestry laws of Europe
and what we could gain from them.

Mr. Nelson Tifft, of Georgia, said this was his first attendance at such an organiza-
tion. The great question is how to protect and increase the woods. The use of lum-
ber cannot be stopped, but the Government can check the fires by the passage of strin-
gent laws. The Government is limited in its power over the property of individuals,
and so the reason of land-owners must be appealed to. Around Albany, Ga., forests
have been rapidly depleted. Much harm has been done by turpentine men.

Professor Glenn, of Jackson County, as he was obliged to leave the city, asked and
was granted permission to read a paper. The paper held that much damage was done
to soil by dead leaves and under-brush, and that to get rid of this the only way was
to burn.

Mrs. Ellen Call Long, cf Florida, said that the State was sadly without statistics on
the subject. The people are greatly behind. The turpentine distilleries have been
steadily injuring the woods, but still much is left. Arbor Day is observed, but in a
sentimental rather than business-like way. Mrs. Long said she had prepared a paper
in which she advocated burning, but that she was almost afraid to read it for fear of
being unpopular with the Secretary—a remark which called forth some hearty
laughter.

Dr. Mohr said of Alabama that nothing, so far, has been done to preserve and repro-
duce the trees. The evils of forest fires are making themselves manifest, and the need
of legislation is becoming apparent. The introduction of dry kilns has done good.

Richard Choate, cf Minnesota: The State is not all forest; much prairie land. For-
ests are being so heavily cut that the need of laws is manifested.

Dr. George W. Minier, of Illinois: Arbor Day is strictly observed in the State. In
the large institution for worn out sailors and soldiers, we suggested to them several
years ago the plan of each planting a tree on that day. Now the day is looked forward
to with interest, and every year several hundred trees are planted by them. The right
sentiment is being aroused among the ladies and children. ‘‘I would as lief put an
elephant to mind chickens, as to try to get most men to think about such things.”

V. J. Shipman, of Iowa, thinks that the western whirlwinds and blizzards have been
checked by forests. The State has exemption taxation laws. In 1880 the State had,
owing to wise forestry laws, twice as much forests as in 1860.

Colonel W. T. Knott, of Kentucky: The northern States are coming to us for hard
woods for the manufacture of such articles as wagon tongues and staves, and the east-
ern States for fine woods for furniture, and with all sections thus thronging to our
woods, they are rapidly going.

Maine not being represented, a paper was read from J. E. Hobbs, a member of the
Forestry Committee of that State, where the forestry problem is engaging the atten-
tion of thoughtful men. Mr. Hobbs’ paper stated that the hopeful state of things is
largely due to the influence of the Boston meeting of the American Congress in 1885.
The Maine State Grange has a membership of over 15,000 farmers. Through their in-
fluence the State established an Arbor day. An an evidence of the interest manifested
in the subject a call has been issued for a State forestry convention to meet at Bangor,
December 18. It promises to be one of the most notable gatherings ever held in the
State.

19

Col. E. T. Ensign, Forest Commissioner of the State, reported briefly in regard to
Colorado, having prepared two papers giving a more extended account of the forest con-
dition of that State and the Rocky Mountain Region.

No delegate being present from California, Secretary Fernow read the second bien-
nial report of the California State Board of Forestry. It showed that, since its organ-
ization, reform was beginning to take place in forest devastation by corporations, fires,
&c. The board is paying especial attention to the protection of the great mountain
watersheds. The report was voluminous, and embraced the whole question of forestry
in that State.

No other States being represented, this finished the reports from the States.

Mr. C. C. Binney, of Pennsylvania, was elected temporary Chairman of the Congress.

An inyitation from Goy. Gordon to attend a reception at the Governor’s mansion this
evening was accepted.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

An invitation from the Girls’ High School was read inviting the Congress to visit the
school to-day at noon, to witness calisthenic exercises and iree planting by the young
ladies. The invitation was accepted.

Mr. C. C. Binney, of Pennsylvania, read the following paper from the Pennsylvania
Board of Forestry, sending greetings to the American Congress:

PHILADELPHIA, Pa., December, 1888.
To the President and Members of the American Forestry Congress :

The Pennsylvania Forestry Association sends its most cordial greeting on this occa-
sion of your seventh annual meeting, an event in which we cannot but take a lively in-
terest, owing, as we do in great part, the existence of our Association to the example
set by your own body.

The vastness of the evil to be contended with is but a measure of the benefits which
success will bring. May it prove, therefore, only an additional stimulus to the accom-
plishment of the work before you. May your deliberations result in hastening the es-
tablishment of an enlightened system of forest management, national, State, local, and
individual, an object which the development of public opinion, as rapid as it is strik-
ing, in favor of forest preservation, forbids us to doubt will, in time, be attained, and
in the pursuit of which you will always be able to command our Association’s hearty
co-operation. As an earnest of this we are prepared to call the attention of President-
elect Harrison to the condition of the forests upon the public lands, and to ask him
officially to make known the same to Congress and urge that body to provide for the
reservation of permanent national forests to be managed according to the system pro-
posed by the bill framed by some of your own members, and presented at the last
session.

In behalf of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association.
BURNET LANDRETH,
President.
Secretary Fernow suggested the adoption of ‘‘ Forest Leaves,” a Pennsylvania for-
estry publication, as the organ of this Congress. The motion was referred to the Com-
mittee on Resolutions.

PAPERS READ.

Col. E. T. Ensign, Porestry Commissioner of Colorado, read a paper entitled, ‘‘Ad-
vantages and Limitations of the Colorado Forestry System.”

General A. W. Greely read a paper on the Meteorology of the Rocky Mountain
Region, which was followed by remarks from Messrs. Fernow, Minier, Knott, and
Egleston.

A paper entitled a ‘‘ Plea for the Rocky Mountain Region ” was read by Col. Ensign
and followed by remarks from Gen. Logan.

Mr. Egleston read by title a paper on ‘‘ The Forestry Outlook.”

Mr. Harrison offered a resolution in favor of securing from the United States Con-
gress the appointment of a Commission for the examination of the condition of the
public forests, the members of the Commission to be nominated by the National

20

Academy of Sciences. After remarks by Messrs. Poindexter, Tifft, Lyman, Fernow,
Ensign, and Logan, it was referred to the Committee on Resolutions.

Senator Brown, of Georgia, being present, was introduced and addressed the Con-
gress.

Judge Brown, of Kentucky, offered a resolution for the publication of a school book
on Forestry, which was referred to the Committee on Publications.

Adjourned.

THURSDAY EVENING SESSION.

At the opening of the evening session the Congress was briefly addressed by the
Hon. S. J. Rauner, of St. Petersburg, of the Royal Imperial Household, who was com-
missioned by the Russian Government to investigate and report upon our system of
agriculture. The address was received with much interest and a brief response was
made by Mr. Egleston. Charles H. Smith, Esq. (Bill Arp), of Rome, Georgia, read a
paper on trees, under the title, ‘‘ The Temples of God,” in which he spoke of many
famous historical trees, and recalled pleasant and instructive passages from many au-
thors relating to trees.

He was followed by Dr. Chas. Mohr, of Mobile, who read a carefully prepared paper
on ‘‘ The interest of the individual in forestry in view of the present condition of the
lumber interest.”

Next, Professor G. F, Atkinson, of South Carolina, read a paper on ‘‘'The Desirable-
ness of Reforesting the Piedmont Region.”

General Greely made some remarks in regard to the practical importance of the sig-
nal service as a means of predicting floods.

A committee for the nomination of officers was appointed, consisting of Messrs.
Minier, Edge, Macy, Kidder, and Fernow.

Dr. A. W. Calhoun, of Atlanta, was welcomed to a seat in the Congress.

Rey. Mr. Hillyer, of Jonesboro, made some remarks upon the medicinal qualities of
the Sweet-Gum.

Adjourned to 9 A. M. Friday.

After adjournment the members attended the levee of Gov. Gordon at his residence.
The Governor and his family gave their guests a hearty welcome and made the occasion
a very pleasant one.

FRIDAY MORNING.

The session of the Congress was opened with prayer by Rev. Mr. Minier.
The report of the Committee on Arbor Day, prepared by Hon. B. G. Northrop, its
Chairman, was read.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ARBOR DAY.

The American Forestry Congress has been the chief organization in promoting the
general observance of Arbor Day. At the meeting of this Association in St. Paul in
1883, a resolution recommending the appointment of an Arbor Day especially for the
schools in the several States and in Canada was adopted, and, at the special meeting in
Washington, a permanent Committee was appointed to advance this movement. At
that time Arbor Day for economic tree-planting had been adopted in four States, but
no State had then enacted a Jaw in favor of Arbor Day in schools. Cincinnati was the
first city to move in this matter, and in the spring of 1883 thoroughly interested the
schools in this good work.

It is now time for your Committee, having been reappointed from year to year, to
give an account of their stewardship. ‘heir first effort was to consult personally, or,
by letter, the Governors and State schoo! superintendents and other influential citizens
in all our States and Territories. Many such officers at first naturally deemed this an
impracticable scheme, who on fuller information have heartily endorsed it and zeal-
ously worked for its success. Objections will still be met, but the logic of events has
removed all reasonable doubts, and secured a general appreciation of this subject
sooner than your Committee expected. It was no surprise, when a paper on ‘‘ Arbor
Day in Schools” was read at a national convention of school superintendents in Wash-

21

ington five years ago, to hear the comment, ‘“‘ This subject is out of place here.”
Though that paper was printed by the U. S. Bureau of Education and widely cireu-
lated, it was a grateful surprise that the next National Education Association, with an
unprecedently large attendance, unanimously adopted a resolution offered by your
Committee in favor of observing Arbor Day in schools in all our States and Territories.
The inertia of ignorance on this subject concentrated the difficulties to be met at the
outset. Once vigorously started, the movement gains fresh impetus year by year. The
beginners in Arbor-Day work in each community will prove public benefactors, for
they initiate a movement which will continue with wide-spread and growing results.
Arbor Day has already been adopted in thirty-one States and Territories by legislative
‘*act” or by special proclamation or recommendation of the Governor or School
Superintendent. In most of the other States these officers have promised ‘“‘to urge
such action upon the next legislature.”

We have not in any case advocated the plan of making Arbor Day a legal holiday.
The ‘‘act” usually adopted requires the Governor annually to designate a particular
date as an Arbor Day by an official proclamation, but fortunately it is simply per-
snasive and not mandatory as toits observance. It involves no compulsory interruption
of business, or even of schools. If in any city, or county, the school officers and teach-
ers take no interest in it, the schools should not be suspended for even a half day or
hour. If in any district indifference or prejudice should still prevail, an enforced ob-
servance would prove a failure. Success will depend on that intelligent appreciation
of this work which teachers and school officers can best create. If the time designated
by the Governor should come in the vacation of any school, its observance may be an-
ticipated, or postponed so as to occur in term time.

To the teaching of forestry in schools, the objection at once arises, ‘‘ the course
of study is already overcrowded,” and this we admit. But trees and tree-planting form
a fit subject for the practical oral lessons now common in all our best schools. Every
pupil should be thus led to observe our common trees and recognize them by each of their
six distinctive marks. Such lessons need occupy very little time. They would tend to
form those habits of close, accurate observation of common things which are of vast
importance in practical life. Nature is the great educator. Facts, objects, things sur-
rounding us on every side in our daily life, are the prime instruments in the training
of the mind, if not also of the heart. Observation precedes reflection and forms the
basis for all culture. Superintendent Peaslee well says: ‘‘ Those talks on trees, which
were the most profitable lessons the pupils of Cincinnati ever had in a single day, oc-
cupied only the morning of Arbor Day, the afternoon being given to the practical
work.”

Such talks will lead our youth to observe and admire trees, and to realize that they
are the grandest products of nature. Like grateful children, trees bring rich filial re-
turns, and compensate a thousand-fold for all the pains they cost. Our schools will
render new service to the State, as well as to their pupils, by leading them to observe
the habits of trees, and thus making them practizal arborists. Then let teachers and
parents encourage every child—girl or boy—to plant, or Help in planting, if too young
to plant alone, some flower, shrub, vine, or tree, to be known by his or her name.
Such offspring they will watch with pride, as every year new beauties appear, and find
a peculiar pleasure in the parentage of trees, whether forest, fruit, or ornamental, a
pleasure that never cloys, but grows with their growth.

The educational effect of such work and its esthetic influence are of priceless value.
Tree-planting is a grand discipline in foresight. It is always planting and planning
for the future. Mental myopia means weakness and folly, while the habit of forecast-
ing is the condition of wisdom. Too often youth will sow only where they can quickly
reap. A meagre crop soon in hand outweighs a golden harvest long in maturing.
Washington Irving well says: ‘‘ There is something nobly simple and pure in a
taste for trees. There is a grandeur of thought connected with this heroic line of hus-
bandry worthy of liberal, free-born, and aspiring men.” ‘The tree-planter can appre-
ciate the apothegm, ‘‘ To patiently work and wait, year after year, for the attainment
of some far-off end, shows a touch of the sublime, and implies moral, no less than
mental heroism.

Teachers can easily interest their pupils in adorning the school grounds, and per-
suade parents to approve and patronize this work.

With proper pre-arrangement in the selection and procuring of trees, vines, or shrubs
Arbor Day may accomplish wonders. Many hands will make merry, as well as light
work. Such a holiday becomes an attractive occasion of social enjoyment and im-
provement, and counteracts the tendency of rural life to isolation and seclusion, lifting
out of the ruts of a dull plodding monotony, promoting neighborly feeling, and
strengthening social ties. It tends to fraternize the people of a district when they thus
meet on common ground and young and old work for a common object, where all dif-
ferences of rank or sect or party are forgotten. The plantings and improvements thus

3

22

made are sure to be protected, and to remain as silent but effective teachers of the
beautiful, especially to all who have shared in the work. In some large cities there
may seem to be little room for tree-planting and no call for even a half holiday for this
work, but even there, fit talks on trees or the memorizing of suitable selections would
be useful, and there are few homes where children cannot find some place for shrubs,
vines, or flowers, if not for trees.

One of the educating forces of Arbor Day begins when children are thus led to plant
not only trees but tree-seeds, acorns, nuts, drupe-stones or pits. and then to observe
the wonderful miracles which the tree-life they have started is working out before them.
What interest and profit, what growth of mind and heart they will gain as they watch
the mysterious forces of these living germs, their marvelous assimilating power carry-
ing on such a curious chemistry in their underground laboratory, linked with the mys-
terious apparatus of the leaves above, transforming coarse earth and even offensive
filth into living forms of surpassing beauty and fragrance. It is something for a child
to drop such a germ in the earth and to justly feel and know that he has made a last-
ing contribution to the natural beauty around him. There is nothing more ennobling
than such consciousuess of doing something for future generations which may provea
growing benefaction in coming years, a better monument than any in bronze or mar-
ble. The trees which children plant around the homestead and watch from seed to
shoot, from bud to limb, and from flower to fruit will be increasingly prized with a
sentiment of companionship and almost of kinship as they grow into living memorials
of happy, youthful days. ‘hus the educating influences of Arbor Day will go on, and
manifest themselves more and more as the years go by, especially to all who apply Dr.
Holmes’ advice and ‘‘ make trees monuments of history and character.”

Village Improvement Societies, now so numerous over the country, should utilize
Arbor Day in furthering their various plans in which the home is the objective point.
The Arbor-Day work begun around the school naturally extends to the home, leading
youth to share in door-yard adornments and in planting trees by the wayside. Thus
by the plantings already made thousands of roads will soon become attractive by long
avenues of trees. Growing on land otherwise running to waste such wayside trees
yield satisfactory returns. The shade and beauty, grateful to every traveller, is doubly
so to the planter, as the happy experience of thousands of American farmers testifies. In
tree planting the economic and esthetic touch at so many points that the cases are rare
where they really diverge.

These Village Improvement Associations foster that public spirit and town pride
which invite and facilitate liberal plans and gifts. They impressively put to every
citizen the question, ‘‘ What do I owe to my town or city; what is it my duty, or
rather my privilege, to do for it?” The sentiment that cherishes one’s town and State
is noble and ennobling, and has characterized the best men the world has ever seen.
Men of wealth would oftener respond to such calls were the need and opportunity
duly presented and appreciated. We underrate the value of this town and State pride
and the need of fostering it in youth. When early formed, this sentiment will grow
with years and attainments. The want of it indicates a serious defect of character.
The cold and selfish soul must be sterile in all noble and heroic virtues.

When on Arbor Day, encouraged by the Governor’s proclamation, every citizen is
stimulated to adorn the homestead, the entire town becomes so inviting as to give new
value to its land and new attractions to its homes. A penurious policy in a town is
penny-wise and pound-foolish. Wise improvements pay in many ways, helping to re-
tain in a town its wealthy and public-spirited citizens, and to attract desirable residents
from abroad. An Arbor Day so observed will develop even in the children that love
of flowers, vines, and trees—all the stronger because they have planted them—that
fosters the domestic sentiments and checks the excessive passion for city life. Such
adornments tend to bind the heart of childhood to the hearthstone, while slatternliness
repels many youth otherwise held to the homestead. These home surroundings are the
more important because they are constant factors in forming character. With a little
forethought, and without any outlay of money, every one may with his own hand—
however humble his cottage—create those adornments which shall bring content and
gladness to his home and cheer to his daily life.

B. G. NORTHROP,
N. H. EGLESTON,
J. B. PEASLEE.

The reading of the report was followed by remarks from Messrs. Weltz, Logan, and
Egleston.

Hon. Nelson Tifft offered some resolutions in regard to practical legislation, which
were referred to the Committee on Resolutions.

The thanks of the Congress were tendered to Gen. Greely for his attendance at the

23

meetings of this body and for his contributions to the interest of the occasion by the
paper read and participation in its discussions.

Mr. Poindexter read a paper on Free Lumber, prepared by Adolph Leué, Esq., Sec-
retary of the Ohio Forestry Bureau.

The time at the disposal of the Congress being limited, it was voted that henceforth
speakers be restricted to two minutes, unless the house should otherwise order.

A paper on Public Parks and Forests, by M. G. Kern, Esq., was read.

Mrs. Ellen Call Long read a paper on ‘‘Some Features of Tree-growth in Florida.”
A vote of thanks for the paper was given Mrs. Long.

The following new members of the Congress were received: Richard Chrite, James
Poindexter, and B. L. Goulding, of Ohio; Hon. R. B. Bullock, D. C. Bacon, Nelson
Tifft, and H. F. James, of Georgia; G. F. Atkinson, John Lawton, and T. G. McKee,
of South Carolina; Hon. 8. J. Rauner, of St. Petersburg, Russia; Hon. James A.
Beaver, C. C. Binney, Herbert Welsh, and Thomas J. Edge, of Pennsylvania; J. D.
Crary, of New York; and G. Pinchot, of Connecticut.

It was voted that at 12 o’clock a recess be taken until 2.30 P. M., for the purpose of
uniting with the citizens of Atlanta in a celebration of Arbor Day by planting trees
around the Girls’ High School and visiting the new Capitol.

A paper sent to the Congress by Mrs. Jefferson Davis, on native trees best adapted
for lawn planting in the South, with special reference to a famous live oak near Biloxi,
Miss. , was read.

The Committee on Resolutions made their report.

Papers were read by title, as follows :

Forest Fires in Northern Canada, by Robert Bell, of Ottawa.

Forestry and National Welfare, by Martin Conrad.

Relation of Railways to the Timber Resources of the United States, by E. E. R.
Tratman, C. E., Brooklyn, N. Y.

Forestry, by Hon. Cassius M. Clay.

A communication was received from Hon. Mr. Joly inviting the Congress to hold its
next annual meeting at Quebec.

The hour of 12 having arrived the Congress, according to its previous vote, took a
recess for the purpose of engaging in the Arbor-Day tree-planting. The members of
the Congress were invited first to the Hall of the High School, where they witnessed
the calisthenic exercises for nearly half an hour. After brief remarks and songs, Prof.
Slaton announced that the tree-planting would take place, after which the new Capitol
would be visited. The trees were planted and dedicated as follows :

The first to Hon. J. Sterling Morton, of Nebraska, the author of Arbor Day, by Mr.
Fernow.

One to Governor James A. Beaver, of Pennsylvania, by C. C. Binney, Esq., of Phila-
delphia.

One to Mrs. Cleveland, by Mrs. Ellen Call Long, of Florida.

One to Mrs. Harrison, by Gen. A. W. Greely.

One to Gen. Greely, by Col. E. 'T. Ensign, of Colorado.

One to Gov. Oglesby, of Illinois, by Hon. Geo. Minier, of Llinois.

One to Goy. Gordon, by Professor Slaton.

One to Mrs. De Jarnette, Principal of the School, by Captain Gray.

The exercises passed off very pleasantly, and at the conclusion the members of the
Congress visited the new Capitol of Georgia, now nearly ready to be occupied.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

The Congress assembled at 3 o’clock.

Hon. Judge Hillyer, of Atlanta, was invited to sit with the Congress.

The report of the Committee on Resolutions was taken up for action, and after dis-
cussion and amendment the resolutions were adopted, as follows :

24

RESOLUTIONS.

Wuereas, The material interests of our country are largely dependent upon the
maintenance of a due proportion of forest and woodlands; and

Wuereas, The wasteful and indiscriminate use of our forests has prevailed to such an
extent as to threaten serious injury to the national welfare :

Resolved, That we earnestly petition the Senate and House of Representatives to
provide without delay for the protection of the forests on the public lands of the United
States from destruction by fire and from spoliation, and also for their preservation and
proper maintenance by the adoption of a system based on the forestry bill introduced
at the last session, and that our Committee on Legislation be instructed to call the at-
tention of the President of the United States to these matters and to take all other
possible action to effect these ends.

Resolved, That the attention of the National Academy of Sciences be respectfully
called to the serious dangers which threaten the welfare of the region comprising the
Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountains and plains adjacent thereto from the devastation
and destruction of the mountain forests, due to the absence of proper regulations in
regard to the public lands of the United States, and that the said Academy be re-
quested to examine the basis of the above statement and to exert their high influence
in recommending to Congress such further legislation for forest management as they
may deem advisable.

Resolwed, That, in the opinion of this Congress, it is of vital importance to the suc-
cess of our work in awakening continued interest in this subject that organization
should be had in each of the several States and Territories in which such organizations
do not already exist; and we earnestly recommend to the legislatures of the several
States to appoint forest commissions, or to direct the officials now in charge of agri-
cultural departments, colleges, and experimental stations to add the subject of forestry
to their investigations, and also to make sufficient appropriations for the work of such
commissions or other officials. And we further recommend that the authorities in
charge of free school education in the several States be requested to bring to the
knowledge of their scholars the practical benefits to be derived from tree planting and
forest culture, and to this end we recommend that the Secretary be requested to for-
ward from time to time to the superintendents of public instruction in the several
States such literature on this subject as he may have at his command.

Resolved, That the American Forestry Congress earnestly recommend all persons in-
terested in forest preservation, whether organized into associations or otherwise, to
secure legislation in their several States in behalf of the following ends:

1. Protection of forests from fire and depredation.

2. Exemption, entire or partial, of forest lands from taxation.

3. Encouragement of tree planting by establishing public nurseries for distribution
of trees, prizes for plantations, and by setting apart arbor days.

4. Permanent reservation and management of forests on public lands.

5. Amendment of stock, stray and fence laws so as to preserve forest lands from in-
jury by cattle and other animals.

Resolved, That we urge the formation of village improvement societies in the towns
and villages of all the States for the purpose of planting and protecting roadside trees,
and the establishing, planting, and improvement of the public squares and parks.

Resolved, That all local forestry associations be recommended to act in co-operation
with the American Forestry Congress, and report their progress to our next session
through delegates or otherwise.

Resolved, 'That all village improvement societies and other local associations organ-
ized for the purpose of promoting the objects of the American Forestry Congress be
entitled to send delegates to its sessions.

Resolwed, That we consider the preparation of a Forestry Reading Book for use in
schools highly desirable.

Resolved, That we hereby express our high esteem and approval of the new publica-
tion, Garden and Forest, under the editorship of Prof. Sargent, and of Forest Leaves,
the monthly publication of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association, and that we refer
to the Committee of Publication the practicability of arranging to make Forest Leaves
the official organ of the Forestry Congress. :

Resolved, That the American Forestry Congress desires to express and put on record
in some form its profound sense of the great value of the services to the cause and in-
terests of American forestry of its Secretary, Hon. B. E. Fernow, who during the last
five years has performed an immense pioneering work, in organizing and aiding the ac-
tion of this Congress in developing popular interest on the subject and in obtaining the
recognition by our people and Government of its great practical importance. We
thank him for his faithful labors in promoting the objects of this Congress. We wish
him abundant success in his official work, and we pledge him our hearty support in his
future efforts for the advancement of American forestry interests.

25

To our retiring President, Hon. C. R. Pringle, we express our grateful thanks for his
impartial and just rulings.

We express our warm thanks to the railroads which have given us reduced rates, and
earnestly hope their generous course may, at no remote day, be imitated by the sey-
eral State governments, in that they make provision for defraying the necessary ex-
penses of at least two delegates from each State and Territory.

Resolved, That the thanks of the Congress are due and are hereby tendered to the re-
porters for their full and correct reports of our proceedings, and to the daily papers for
the publication of the same.

Resolved, That our appreciative thanks are tendered to His Excellency, the Govy-
ernor, to the General Assembly of this State, to His Honor, the Mayor, and the City
Council for courtesies extended to us.

Resolved, That the liberality of the Young Men’s Christian Association in giving us
the use of their beautiful hall is highly appreciated and hereby acknowledged.

OFFICERS ELECTED.

The officers elected for the ensuing year were :

President, Governor J. A. Beaver, of Pennsylvania; Vice-Presidents, H. G. Joly,
Canada; J. D. W. French, Massachusetts; Chas. Mohr, Alabama; Herbert Welsh, Penn-
sylvania; George Parsons, Colorado; Recording Secretary, N. H. Egleston, of Washb-
ington, D. C.; Corresponding Secretary, J. B. Harrison, of New Hampshire.

The following Committee on Publication was appointed :

N. H. Egleston, J. B. Harrison, and H. M. Fisher.

The Committees on Legislation and Arbor Day were continued.

An amendment to the Constitution was adopted giving the designation of the time
and place of meetings of the Congress to the Executive Committee.

The following resolution was unanimously adopted :

Resolved, That the Congress respectfully call the attention of the National Congress
to the great importance of more liberal appropriations to the Signal Service Bureau and
the Forestry Division of the Agricultural Department for the adequate prosecution of
their very important work, so beneficial to so many of our national interests, and we
earnestly request them to make such appropriations.

Mr. J. D. W. French, of Massachusetts, presented a resolution asking that duty be
taken off lumber. It was laid upon the table.
There being no other business before the Congress, it adjourned sine die.
N. H. EGLESTON,
Recording Secretary.

THE ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS OF THE COLORADO FORESTRY
SYSTEM.

BY EDGAR T. ENSIGN, FOREST COMMISSIONER, COLORADO.

The Colorado State Forestry Association was the first fruit of systematic and per-
sistent local agitation of the forestry question. After that followed quite easily the
enactment of a forest law, which in two years thereafter was strengthened by amend-
‘ment.

The law, originally enacted in 1885, creates the office of State Forest Commissioner,
and constitutes the county commissioners and road overseers throughout the State
forest officers in their respective localities. The Forest Commissioner receives an an-
nual salary, office accommodations and supplies, and travelling allowances. The
county forest officers are paid per diem, according to services rendered, by the several
counties.

These officers are charged with the oversight of the public forests; to guard them
from depredation as much as possible, and prevent the outbreak and spread of fire.
They are also required to encourage and promote the culture of forest trees wherever
practicable.

In addition to the above, there are statutes which provide penalties for the wilful
or careless setting of forest fires, or for failure to extinguish camp-fires; and the boards
of county commissioners are severally required to have notices posted in conspicuons
places, along the public highways, warning persons to extinguish camp-fires, and citing
the penalties for failure so to do.

Inasmuch as the bulk of the forests are situated on the public lands, over which the
State has no direct control, the action of the State authorities is at times limited to co-

26

operation with the Federal officers. This is especially true in cases of depredation,
information thereof forming the basis of suits being lodged with the United States
district attorney.

Arbor Day, though not yet established by law, has, through custom, become a
State institution, and may be regarded as a part of the forestry system. For several
successive years the day has been set apart by proclamation of the Chief Executive,
and its observance has been quite general, except as limited by climatic or other
natural causes.

Another matter worthy of mention here is the work being done in this behalf by the
State Agricultural College. ‘Theoretical and practical arboriculture constitute a part
of the regular college course, and are taught with manifest advantage to all concerned.
Provision has been made for the establishment, in connection with the college, of four
experimental stations in as many different sections of the State. Two of these have
already been located and action taken for the location of another. It is confidently
expected that in the work of these stations much attention will be given to the science
of arboriculture, in its adaptation to local conditions.

The advantages or benefits of the Colorado forestry system may be summarized thus :

1. It provides a principal or directing officer, with numerous assistants in the various
sections of the State. This feature is a good one, and (in theory at least) should work
smoothly and efficiently. By means of circulars and other communications issuing
from the office of the State Forest Commissioner, the local forest officers are to some ex-
tent familiarized with the provisions of the forest law, and they in turn may acquaint
others with them.

2. The exercise of executive power, although greatly limited as heretofore stated,
has some moral significance and is not barren of practical results. Forest fires have
become less frequent and destructive, and the Federal officers are aided somewhat in
their efforts to protect the public timber.

3. By the dissemination of information relating to tree culture, by the distribution
(necessarily limited) of plant material, and by other means, the culture of trees has
been materially promoted.

4. The educational and advisory features of the system are necessarily made promi-
nent. Much has been done, in various ways, to create a just public sentiment upon
the forestry question. Special efforts have been made to show the intimate relations
existing between the mountain forests, streams, and irrigation systems of the State.

The limitations of the system, though greatly less in number and degree than its ad-
vantages, are quite marked.

1. The State forest officers, having no direct control of the public woodlands, a de-
cided limitation is thus attached to their administrative functions and usefulness.

2. Although the State Forest Commissioner is in direct and frequent communication
with the local forest officers, the indifference and lack of interest often shown by the
latter is somewhat discouraging. To resist and overcome this evil calls for the abun-
dant exercise of both ‘‘ faith and works.”

In conclusion it may be said that the system is the result of earnest effort to improve
local forest conditions. It deals with new methods, and seeks to adapt itself to con-
ditions dissimilar to those existing elsewhere. In the absence of anything better, it
accomplishes fairly well the objects for which it was created. It should be maintained
until some more effective system can be devised and placed in operation.

RAIN-FALL OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE AND THE WESTERN STATES AND
TERRITORIES.

BY BRIG. GEN. A. W. GREELY, OHIEF SIGNAL OFFICER.

The twelve States and Territories here considered comprise nearly one-half the area
of the United States (excluding Alaska), and to the inhabitants of each and all of them
the question of rain-fall is one of the greatest interest and importance. But apart from
the practical value which this subject has for the four millions of people inhabiting
these districts must be added the interests of the future millions who ultimately will
settle in the so-called arid and subhumid regions. Private enterprise has wrought
great changes in the West, but the day is fast approaching when the General Govern-
ment will be obliged to define not only its general policy regarding the forests and
rivers of this vast inland empire, but also pass upon the interstate question of irriga-
tion, even if it does not ‘give direct countenance and aid to this powerful means of
increasing a thousand-fold the present value of many millions of acres of unwatered
land.

In the early century this territory was viewed as hardly suited for civilized man; its
enormous plains and vast mountains being represented as arid and desert regions, un-

27

suited for cultivation, and in many places even unfit for pasturage. Adventure, ex-
ploration, and circumstance have pushed the frontier westward until the myths of the
Great American Desert to the north and of the rainless ‘‘ staked plains” to the south
have practically disappeared. It is none the less true, however, that the latest and
most reliable American text-book of meteorology of this country speaks of the areas
‘between the Sierra Nevadas and the Rocky Mountains, including portions of Utah,
New Mexico and California,” as ‘‘a region which is almost entirely destitute of rain,”
and that further on the east side of the Rocky Mountains ‘‘the country is a barren
desert, almost without rain.”

An examination of the charts of maximum annual rain-fall and minimum annual rain-
fall of these regions shows clearly that rain-fall conditions are considerably more equa-
ble than has been generally believed, so that the isohyetal lines are quite as regular on
these charts of maxima and minima conditions as on those of average conditions. The
minimum rain-fall has never reached zero for any year, and annual or seasonal rain-
falls less than one inch have occurred in southwestern California and southwestern
Arizona at few stations only. These maps of maxima and minima precipitation must
be of great practical value as showing the settler or investor exactly the extreme condi-
tions which he must expect to experience in these regions.

Another great value of the charts is the bringing to general attention and considera-
tion very extensive areas of country in what has been known as the arid region, where
late and careful observations have shown the rain-fall to be far greater than has been
usually attributed, and thus transfer these areas to the subhumid districts.

The great extent to which misapprehension as to the rain-fall conditions of the arid
regions has been corrected by these charts is evidenced by the fact that the area on
which the mean annual rain-fall is less than 10 inches, shown on statistical maps of the
tenth census at 241,000 square miles, has been reduced to 126,000 square miles, while
a similar reduction is shown in the area of country where the yearly rain-fall is between
10 and 15 inches, which, given in the census chart at 385,000 square miles, is now
limited to 259,000 square miles. In other words, the area over which less than 15
inches of rain falls annually has been reduced almost a quarter of a million (241,000)
square miles. A large area of country charted on the statistical map as having an
average rain-fall of less than 5 inches now entirely disappears in Texas, New Mexico,
Utah, and Oregon, and is very materially reduced in Nevada, Arizona, and California.

Observations over a small, compact, agricultural area of South Australia afford very
reliable data as to the effect of rain-fall upon annual wheat yields. It appears from
these observations that 12 inches of rain in the six winter months produces 6 bushels
of wheat peracre, and that for every increase of rain-fall of an inch a like increase oc-
curs in the average production of bushels of wheat per acre. The effect of the extra
rain in the season over the small area of South Australian wheat lands would give an
additional fee-simple value of £10,000,000.

The importance of information as to the rain-fall conditions of the arid regions must
increase steadily as time goes on, and the Eastern States become gradually filled with a
more or less dense population. As has been pointed out by the Director of the Geo-
logical Survey, the arid region of the United States includes more than four-tenths of
the entire country, excluding Alaska. It is believed that the accomplished Director
unintentionally overstated the case when he advanced the idea that those regions should
be classed as arid or incapable of successful agriculture without irrigation where the
rain-fall is less than 20 inches annually. The statements put forth by him that with 20
inches agriculture will suffer drought, and will be fruitless many seasons in a long
series, is equally true of regions over which as much as 25 or 30 inches fall annually.
‘Indeed, during this very year sections of the country where the annual rain-fall ranged
from 30 to 50 inches have been visited by a most serious and protracted drought, which
proved most disastrous to agricultural and other kindred interests.

The point at which a region may be classed as arid and unfit for successful cultiva-
tion should be lowered, it is believed, to 15 inches. The Chief Signal Officer does not
assert that this amount of annual rain-fall will be sufficient for all crops, nor on all
kinds of soil, and at every elevation. Latitude, elevation, equable distribution of rain-
fall, humidity, soil—all these are conditions which must be important factors in the
problem. Exact observations upon these points are lacking in the United States, but
in Australia observations and experiments have been made, covering now quite a num-
ber of years, on wheat (and this may be called a test crop).

The fact that wheat can be grown without irrigation in a country where the annual
rain-fall is less than 20 inches is evidenced by official statistics from Dakota, which
show that wheat is grown by tens of willions of bushels yearly in sections where the
rain-fall ranges from 20 inches downward. Indeed, the arid region limit based on 15
inches mean annual rain-fall is a most reliable one in that region, as is evidenced by
the fact that oyer 3,000,000 bushels of wheat are now grown annually in counties where
the rain-fall ranges from 15.1 down to 13.8. (See ‘‘ Resources of Dakota, 1887,” an
official publication. )

28

The report of Major Powell states that in Utah less than 3 per cent. of its lands can
be cultivated by irrigation. Thirty years since it was argued that the prevalence of
alkaline matter in the soils rendered it evident that the whole country was worthless
for agricultural purposes, even if sufficient rain-fall prevailed, or water for irrigation
was available. Experience has shown the fallacy of this statement, and it is now ad-
mitted that with water the greater part of the plateau lands are suited for cultivation.
It is evident that a certain degree of elevation marks the limit of successful agriculture.
But in certain portions of the arid regions, owing to the very high summer tempera-
tures, it is probable that the snmmer heats raise the limit of elevation for such crops
as can be developed and ripened in a few months.

Perhaps the most careful observations in connection with the effect of rain-fall upon
pasturage have been made in Australia, the question being very important, owing to
the immense arid regions in that country. It has been set forth, and probably with a
fair degree of authority, that annual rain-fall is a most reliable index as to the pastoral
capacity of a country, since grass benefits by rain at any season, although it is not to
be denied that a more equable distribution throughout the year is much better than an
unequal one.

Australian records show that in that climate land favored with less than 10 inches of
rain a year is quite valueless without irrigation. The truth of this remark is borne out
in a measure by the uplands of Castile, Spain, which, the average rain-fall being less
than 10 inches a year, are of but little value. In Australia the small pastoral capacity
of an arid region is shown by the fact that up to 10 inches only one sheep per square
mile can be carried for each inch of rain-fall. From 9 to 13 inches, however, the in-
crease is about twenty sheep a square mile, and for the remaining 7 to 20 inches of
rain-fall the increased carrying capacity is about seventy sheep per square mile.

It has been estimated that the sandy land in San Joaquin Valley, California, would
feed about one sheep to the acre in the natural state, but when irrigated and growing
alfalfa it carries twenty.

The statement put forth by the Director of the Geological Survey that over 20 inches
of rain-fall is necessary for the growth of forests is probably correct, and, the condi-
tions of temperature and soil being constant, the extreme limit of the timber regions
would not differ materially from the mean rain-fall line of 20 inches; but, as is well
known, the timber regions have been materially reduced in area by fire. From this
cause not only have these regions suffered where timber would grow freely, but the
bordering line of debatable land has naturally lost all its timber ; and, moreover, it is
most probable that the destruction of scattered and stunted bits of outlying forests has
of itself tended to still more restrict the general area of the forest regions.

The effect of forests as factors in the increase of rain-fall is more or less questioned,
but the weight of opinion and of accumulative evidence tends to confirm the theory
that forests do slightly increase the mean rain-fall. The confining of Indians to reser-
vations has removed one fruitful cause of fires during the last ten years, so that the
stunted forests are having an opportunity of increasing the limit only by the operation
of natural laws. The immense number of planted and cultivated trees over the great
plains of Kansas and Nebraska will undoubtedly contribute their part in the coming
years toward the increase of rain-fall, and, what is more important, its substantial re-
tention in the soil and more slow and equal distribution than was possible when the
same amount of rain fell upon a hardened, open prairie, and, without the intervention
of loosened soil and vegetation, drained at once as torrents into the beds of the near-
est water-courses.

The question of irrigation is rightly deemed in the arid regions as being of the
greatest importance to the general welfare, so that the subject of water-rights has
claimed early attention in these Territories. In New Mexico, for instance, water for
irrigation has an absolute right of way, and no work of human hands is allowed to ob-
struct its free flow, while all rivers and streams are declared public acequias or irri-
gating canals. Since, however, the land to be irrigated exceeds the capacity of the
water, disputes in the future must become more frequent as to the division of these
water-rights, since from time to time much land which has received a bountiful supply
of water will find this quantity seriously diminished, or totally cut off, as other irriga-
ble land is put under cultivation nearer the source of supply. It is understood that
more or less complaint has already been made by the settlers in the lower valley of the.
Platte that the quantity of water which formerly came to them from the upper valley,
which is in another State, has been materially reduced, to the serious detriment of the
settlers in the lower valley. It may be put forth as a reasonable opinion that each State
is entitled, for agricultural purposes, to so much rain-fall as naturally falls upon its
agricultural lands, while the amount which falls in uncultivated regions might be sub-
ject to other rules as to its general and equable distribution. In any event, this may
become an important question, for such people of Nebraska, for instance, as depend
upon irrigation in their agriculture, when later the valleys of Wyoming and Colorado
shall be put under the fullest possible cultivation.

29

The question, then, assumes a magnitude far greater than is usually assigned to it,
affecting as it does the future agricultural interests of one-third of the area of the
United States. This question, which concerns the interests of millions of people, can-
not be satisfactorily discussed and arranged without a knowledge of the mean annual
rain-fall which falls over the area of each particular drainage basin.

The extreme value in the arid region of every inch of rain-fall can hardly be appre-
ciated by the population of well-watered countries. Since this is a question which
affects four-tenths of the area of the United States, there seems no doubt but in the
future the interests of such an enormous area will concur in urging upon Congress the
question of State-control irrigation. In one of the governments of that country which
most resembles the United States (Australia) this policy has lately been taken—by the
government of Victoria. In Spain it is calculated that every five inches of rain-fall
that can be collected off a given catchment area and brought to market is worth the
same area of first-class irrigable but unirrigated land. The question which may arise
between Nebraska and the Territories comprising the headwaters of the Platte has
already greatly excited the public mind in Australia on the question as to whether South
Australia has any right to have water flowing in the Lower Murray.

It is to be borne in mind that the rain-fall of the arid regions depends almost entirely
upon accidental or cyclonic disturbances, and not (as in some parts of the world) on
steady, prevailing winds which change at stated periods of the year. It thus follows
that the rain at stations throughout these districts is simply the deposition of moisture
in the shape of rain or snow, through the cooling of the air drawn by cyclonic disturb-
ances from the elevation of the sea to high altitudes.

It is well known that enormous quantities of water occasionally fall in these arid
regions, the phenomena being known as cloud-bursts. These downpours of rain, while
injurious and even destructive at the time, yet being taken up by the earth, they serve
usefully later as a water supply, through the medium of rivers, artesian wells, or
springs. The quantities which fall in a single cloud-burst cannot be calculated, but
the amount can be expressed by no other word than enormous. In southeastern Cali-
ifornia, in the desert country, where it has been said that no rain falls, one cloud-burst
was of such extent that, although the country was nearly level, yet water fell in such
enormous quantities that over a quarter of a mile of the Southern Pacific Railroad was
completely swept away, and other portions of the track submerged and damaged. It
is to be noted, also, that this quantity of rain fell during one of the dry months, when
the rain-map showed for southern California only .01 or .02 inch of rain, barely enough
to moisten the surface of the sandy desert.

That this is not a solitary case of exceedingly high precipitation in the arid region at
points where no rain-fall stations are located is well known to meteorological students;
as among other instances may be quoted August 26, near Hays City, Kans., and on
same date near Kanab, Utah, and five days later near Coalville, Utah, the cloud-burst
causing a solid bank of water between 3 and 4 feet high.

These cases might be multiplied, but enough has been given to accentuate the fact
that the wide distribution and tolerably frequent occurrence of these cloud-bursts must
so add to the water falling on the arid regions as to make the supply vastly greater for
irrigating and other purposes, through the media of springs, streams, and wells, than
these charts set forth.

The question of increasing rain-fall in the Great Interior Basin seems to be satis-
factorily settled as far as the catchment basin of Great Salt Lake is concerned. The
systematic and careful observations made by Prof. G. K. Gilbert, of the Geological
Survey, supplemented by other data for the past forty years, which he has collated and
sifted, gives with tolerable accuracy the level of the Great Salt Lake, which serves as
a reservoir for probably two-thirds of the entire territory of Utah, as well as for a con-
siderable portion of Idaho. A chart kindly furnished by Professor Gilbert shows that
Salt Lake fell from 1845 to 1849; rose to 1856, fell to 1860; rose to 1873, and fell, with
a slight interruption, until 1884, and rose until 1886, since which time it has a slightly
falling tendency. It is significant that while the first two minima were substantially
the same in 1849 and 1860, yet the minimum of 1884 is at about the same height as the
maximum of 1856, and is over a foot above the maximum of 1845. As the country
adjacent to the lake is substantially level, it follows that any increase in the height of
the water must be most gradual, since the area of the lake, and consequently the evapo-
rating surface of water, is largely increased. This consideration would not be so im-
portant in some portions of the United States, but in a region where the annual eyapo-
ration cannot be far from 6 or 7 feet, it is a very pertinent fact.

It is a significant fact, which may, however, be overrated, that the greatest and most
rapid rise of the water of Salt Lake occurred between the years 1862 and 1870; that
is to say, during the period when the amount of land being brought under cultivation
and the quantity of vegetation and the number of trees was most largely increasing.
This increase of height in Great Salt Lake continued, too, despite the fact that irrigat-

30

ing canals were being brought into extensive use, so that large quantities of water which
otherwise would have run into the lake were diverted to watering the irrigable lands
and was absorbed by the soil or evaporated in the dry air of that region.

The rain-fall records of Salt Lake City and Camp Douglas are, unfortunately, too
broken and unsatisfactory to show the exact relations of the rain-fall to the rising lake.
It has, however, been stated that after 1860 a number of creeks which ran dry in sum-
mer commenced to furnish water the whole year round. The Chief Signal Officer of
the Army, when serving at Salt Lake in 1867, was informed by old settlers that the
name ‘‘ New Creek,” which was then given to the creek running through Camp Doug-
las, was so applied because the creek, which had never given water except during the
spring freshets from the melting snow, had become a permanent stream winter and
summer.

In connection with this question of secular variation and increase in rain-fall comes
up also the problem as to whether forests have any effect upon rain-fall. As stated
previously, the Chief Signal Officer has no doubt of the valuable services rendered to
agriculture and other interests by the slow, equable, and gradual distribution of water
through the medium of forests. In a recent article upon the Yellow Stone Park as a
forest reservation, Prof. Arnold Hague, U.S. Geological Survey, urges the value of
forests as a protecting influence for the country comprised in the lower drainage basins
of rivers. He says:

‘‘TIn an arid and sparsely timbered country, and one of unequally distributed rain-
fall, forest and moisture maintain reciprocal relations. Experience has shown in
Europe, and unfortunately already in America, the injurious effect of disafforesting a
country near the headwaters of large rivers. One instance will suffice illustrate this
protecting influence of the forest. The report of the recent forestry commission of the
State of New York says, speaking of the resources of the Hudson River, that the sum-
mer flow of the Adirondack rivers had decreased. within the memory of men now living
from 30 to 50 per cent. Many of the small streams which a quarter of a century ago
were abundantly supplied with water during the entire summer are now dry during
many months.

‘« Remove the forests from the sources of the Yellowstone and Snake, and the region
will become a barren waste. The snows under the scorching rays of the sun would
rapidly disappear, and early spring freshets and floods, carrying devastation before
them, would strip the rocks bare of the meager soil with which they are now covered.
Under the influence of the forests the soil and vegetation are protected, which in turn
act as a sponge, regulating the flow and supplying the springs and streams. The
climatic benefits derived from this forest-protected region can scarcely be overesti-
mated. From the cool, wet surface of the broad storehouse of water, the dry winds
coming from the west absorb immense quantities of moisture. which is again precipi-
tated over the agricultural and grazing lands to the eastward. Not only should the
present reservation be carefully guarded, but the area of the park should be enlarged
to the east and south, so as to take in a dense forest region useless for agricultural pur-
poses and destitute of mining resources.”

The Chief Signal Officer concurs with Professor Hague in the opinions here advanced,
and also is of the opinion that extensive forests slightly increase the rain-fall of any
country, although not to such an extent as is advanced by many.

Mr. Henry F. Blanford, the able and experienced meteorological reporter to the gov-
ernment of India, one of the most reliable authorities on meteorological subjects, dwelt
somewhat, in his last report (1885-’86), upon the effect of forests upon rain-fall. He
believes that the observations in India show a slightly larger rain-fall in forests than
without, and that the obvious inference to be drawn from the tabulated data is that
the existence of forests increases the rain-fall. While admitting that the present evi-
dence is not entirely conclusive, yet he expresses the opinion that the certainty of this
tendency will be further confirmed by future experience. The most striking instance
of apparent increase of rain-fall owing to forest production refers to the Central Proy-
inces of India, where the rain-fall average for the past eleven years is considerably
larger than when obtained from a longer period. In investigating the cause of this
change the fact was developed that ‘‘ extensive tracts of forests, previously devastated
by jungle fires with a view to the nomadic system of cultivation practised by the hill
tribes, had been brought under protection in 1875, and that thereby the area of vigor-
ous forest growth had been enormously increased.” It appears from extended obser-
vations in India that the probable error of mean rain-fall derived from teu years’ obser-
vations is but 5 per cent., while the increase in this case was 10 per cent. Admitting
that 5 per cent. was due to the error in the ten-year mean, it appears that an equal
amount must be attributed to some local cause; and while the conservation of the
forests is not positively shown to be this cause, yet this accumulating evidence is of
marked importance in relation to this subject.

The secular variation of rain-fall, as has been set forth by many writers, may be con-

31

sidered as undoubted ; but as to whether it follows any known or definite law is very
much to be questioned ; since, although a succession of dry years follow each other,
which are succeeded by others about the mean, and then again by a succession of wet
years, yet it does not need a very elaborate comparison to show that excesses of rain
prevail in a given year in one section of the country while deficiencies occur in the
same year in others.

The Chief Signal Officer does not hesitate to express the opinion that the trans-
Mississippi and trans-Missouri rain-fall is slightly increasing as a whole, though in
certain localities it may be slightly decreasing from causes set forth above, and it
seems most proper for him to put forth his strong conviction, even if it be not a cer-
tainty, when, as in this case, it will tend to reassure the agricultural population in the
lately drought-stricken districts of the West. There appears no possible reason to be-
lieve that the scanty rain-fall of the past year or two will not be followed by increas-
ing precipitation in the next few years, which will maintain the annual rain-fall of
these sections at the average, or even increase it.

A PLEA FOR ROCKY MOUNTAIN FORESTS.

BY EDGAR T. ENSIGN, COLORADO.

It is estimated that in the State of Colorado, and in the Territories of Wyoming,
Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, about 95,000 square miles, or say
thirteen per cent. of the entire area, is timber land. By this is meant all kinds of
timber or forest growth, light and heavy, valuable and inferior.

The forests of this region, which are mainly coniferous, are mostly situated on the
mountain slopes, at altitudes varying from 4,500 to 12,000 feet above the sea; ina few
instances the timber line extends to a height of 12,400 feet. Some of the foot-hills
and mesas have a scattering, inferior forest growth, and many of the streams which
flow from the mountains are bordered with cottonwood and a few other native decidu-
ous kinds. Large tracts in the mountains, from which the evergreen forest was burned,
have since been covered with grovesof aspen, commonly called ‘* quaking asp.” Other
extensive areas are wholly denuded of forest growth, and, with their rocky, seamed,
and storm-beaten surfaces, are desolate and forbidding in the extreme. Crowning all
are naked mountain crests and snow-clad summits.

Except in a few favored localities, the forests are not dense. Quite compact and
heavy growths of spruce are sometimes found at the higher altitudes and upen the
mountain slopes. The yellow pine, the most generally useful timber tree, seeks a
lower level than the spruce, and is usually confined to the southern slopesin warm and
dry situations. When the pine forest has been destroyed it is difficult and often im-
possible for it to reproduce itself, owing to the prevailing arid condition. On northern
slopes, the home of the spruce, where snow and moisture are longer retained, a second
growth is more likely to appear.

The lumber product of the pine and spruce, though inferior in quality, is used for
a variety of purposes. Dwarf cedar, common to the foot-hills, is used extensively for
fence posts; pine, pifion, and other kinds are used for fuel.

The altitudes of the Rocky Mountain region, inclusive of the valleys, plains, and
plateaus, vary from 680 feet above sea level, at Lewiston, Idaho, to an extreme height
of 14,400 feet in the mountains of Colorado. The average, or mean, elevation of sevy-
eral of the political divisions is given by good authorities as follows: Montana, 3,000
feet ; Idaho, 4,700 feet ; New Mexico, 5,600 feet; Wyoming, 6,000 feet ; Colorado, 7,000
feet.

The approximate mean elevation of the Idaho and Montana ranges is 8,000 feet ; of
the Wyoming ranges, 9,000 feet. The mean height of the Colorado and New Mexico
system, south to the latitude of Santa Fé, is about 10,500 feet. Prominent mountains
appear in all parts of the region. The best known and named peaks of the Colorado
system, sixty-seven in number, vary in height from 10,906 to 14,464 feet. Seventy-two
other peaks in the same State, between 13,500 and 14,300 feet in height, are unnamed.

I have thus indicated the great altitude of the region. It extends from the British
possessions to the Mexican boundary. At least seven-eighths of its entire area lies
north of the parallel of Atlanta. Asa result of its high altitude and comparatively
northern situation, its snowy mountains and forests, powerful rivers are thus produced.
In viewing its drainage system it should be noted, however, that no important distrib-
uting centre is found south of Colorado. The principal rivers of the region, as indeed
of the entire West, are the Missouri, Columbia, Platte, Colorado of the West, Rio
Grande, and Arkansas. The first two rise in the mountain ranges of Montana, Idaho,
and Wyoming, in what might be called the north-eastern and north-western basins,
their waters flowing respectively to the Atlantic and Pacific. The other four emerge

32

from the Colorado system, and carry their blessings (and sometimes ills) to widely di-
vergent sections. Hundreds of lesser and tributary streams have a similar origin.

During the few years covering the rise and partial development of the mountain ter-
ritories, soon, it is hoped, to become strong and popular States, gold and silver mining
and live stock growing have been their chief industries. In the near future agriculture
is likely to take precedence of the others; its recent progress, fostered by great sys-
tems of irrigation, has been almost phenomenal. Great agricultural enterprises, similar
in kind, if not in degree, to those of Colorado, have already been inaugurated in all of
the Rocky Mountain territories. It is obvious that the demand for water, at present
very great, will be largely augmented in the future. :

In this connection I may allude to the recent action of Congress in authorizing the
making of topographical surveys to determine what lands of the mountain and plains
region may be reclaimed with the aid of irrigation, the water supply available for such
a purpose, and where reservoirs, canals, and other irrigation works should be con-
structed. In view of the agricultural possibilities contingent upon this action, and the
probable prevention of floods in the great rivers, this movement for the storage and
utilization of water is of first importance to large portions of our common country.

But what, it may be asked, is the immediate connection between the forests of the
Rocky Mountain region and its irrigation systems? The forests are the principal natu-
ral agencies in regulating the flow of water; they prevent the premature melting of
snows and protect and nourish the sources of streams. In other words, aside from the
office performed by them in attracting moisture and causing precipitation, it is evident
that the forests in question, by reason of their location and character, and the sur-
rounding physical and economic conditions, are of vastly more importance for the con-
servation of water than for any other purpose. In fact, may it not be presumed that
this was the great object for which they were created ?

The principal destructive agencies, as affecting the forests of this region, are—

1. Fire.—In nearly all operations for the utilization of forest products a mass of com-
bustible material is left behind, and then the careless use of fire in a dry period kin-
dles a disastrous conflagration. All ordinary demands upon the forest, even with the
wasteful methods in vogue, might be met if destruction by fire could be avoided.

2. Railway Construction.—Railway building in the Rocky Mountain region, espec-
ially in Colorado, is increasing in such rapid proportion as to offer a most serious
menace to the existence of the forests. After the tie-chopping legion come settlers,
miners, lumbermen, charcoal burners, and others, all of whom, in addition to the
havoc wrought by themselves, prepare the way for that most dreaded of all enemies—
fire. ‘The demand of the railways for cross-ties, timber, and dimension lumber causes
the most serious drain upon the forest. For ties, only the young, partly grown and
most vigorous trees are used; the consumption for that purpose alone is enormous.
The timber so obtained, as compared with other available material, is inferior in
quality. Cedar and oak ties, from the southern, lake, and Pacific forests, can be de-
livered in Colorado at a cost not exceeding one-third more than the native pine ties;
the former are in every way superior, and their period of usefulness is at least double
that of the latter. Therefore no hardship would be imposed in requiring railways to
draw upon other than the mountain region for their timber supplies.

3. Lumbering.—The erection and operating of saw-mills tosupply local and ordinary
demands for lumber would not be specially objectionable if the business could be con-
ducted under proper regulations and restrictions. Under existing laws, however, most
flagrant abuses are perpetrated, and the forests suffer great and unnecessary loss.

4. Mining Operations.—The requirements of the mining industries (including coal
mining) are great and rapidly increasing. The timbering of mines, construction of
shaft-houses, smelters, dwellings, and other necessary buildings, call for a liberal use
of timber. In some of the older mining districts the timber supply has been ex-
hausted, and such material is brought from a distance at undue cost to the consumer.

5. Charcoal Manufacture.—This, in certain localities, is a very destructive agency.
The charcoal burner is as merciless as the hand of fate! He spares not the small-
est and most insignificant forest growth, if nothing better is within his reach. The in-
dustry is fostered by the requiremexts of smelters, which consume great quantities of
charcoal in the reduction of ores. The use of charcoal for this purpose is not impera-.
tive; under certain processes charcoal is a cheaper fuel than mineral coal or coke. At
some of the principal works but little, if any, charcoal is used.

I have thus endeavored to explain some of the conditions under which the Rocky
Mountain forests exist, the special need for their continuance, and the principal dan-
gers to which they are exposed. Permit me to ask that in addition to the general in-
terest you may take in forest preservation and forest culture, you will actively co-
operate in all proper efforts that may be made to shield from further injury the forests
of the Rocky Mountains.

38

THE FORESTRY OUTLOOK.
BY N. H. EGLESTON, WASHINGTON, D. 0.

Disappointed though we may be in not having been able to accomplish the particu-
lar object for which we have made special efforts during this year and to secure the
legislative action in behalf of our public forests which we deem so important, there is
yet much to encourage us in the general outlook which we may take at the present
time. There is a general rising of the tide of public opinion in regard to forestry mat-
ters. If there has been no marked advance at any one point, there has been some
progress all along the line. Nowhere has there been a lessening of interest in the sub-
ject which specially engages our attention and efforts; almost everywhere there has
been an increase. The newspaper press reflects public opinion. It a trustworthy indi-
cator of what is at the time engaging general thought, and every observant reader
must have noticed the increasing frequency with which subjects relative to forestry
have found a place in many of our papers. We are in danger of becoming impatient
because the visible progress is not as rapid as we wish or as seems to us desirable. We
need to remember that public opinion, like the trees themselves, is of slow growth.
Like the annual rings of the trees also, which sometimes are so indistinctly marked as
to be obvious only to a careful scrutiny by a trained eye, the advance in public opinion
from year to year, or during any brief period, may not always be easily discernible.
Consider what an educational process is involved in this matter of Forestry and what a
comparatively slow process that of education always is. It is only a few years since the
word forestry became a part of our common speech. It was hardly in the dictionary.
It belonged to the vocabulary of the scholar or the specialist. Even now it has a defi-
nite meaning for only the comparatively few, and most persons have done little more as
yet than to learn the alphabet of forestry. We are at present in the primary school of
this subject, and education in the primary school is effected only by the frequent iter-
ation of the same simple things. Advancement at this period therefore seems slow,
and is not very obvious. Nevertheless there is progress.

And so, with considerations like these in mind, I think if you will look over the field
with me as well as we are able to do in the brief time that can be allotted to it here,
we shall find encouragement to go on with the work in which we are engaged. I
think we shall find encouraging progress has been made during the present year.

Turning our eyes, then, to the farthest East, we find that the people of Maine, known
as the Pine Tree State, because it was so early and so long the chief source of supply
to the markets of the country of white pine lumber, have for some years been sensible
of the detrimental effect of sweeping off their forests as they had formerly done and
have restricted their cut to nearly the measure of annual increase by growth. Two
years ago the Legislature established Arbor Day, and the various Granges of the State
are doing much to secure its observance and to make it both pleasant and profitable.
A call has also been made for a Forestry Convention to be held in that State a few days
hence. The feeling in regard to forestry matters may also be judged from the fact that
the Governor has commissioned one of its citizens to attend this body as a delegate,
whose voice it will doubtless be our privilege to hear.

Massachusetts, one of the earliest States to guard the forests, within a few years has
adopted legislation calculated still further to promote the interests of forestry. This
legislation embraces laws to protect the forests from fire and from careless or wanton
injury, to exempt plantations of forest trees from taxation for a certain number of years,
and to enable cities and towns to take and manage lands for the purpose of preserving
and cultivating forest trees thereon. The State is encouraging the planting of trees on
mountain, rocky, and marshy lands which are unprofitable for ordinary cultivation, if
not incapable of it. The State Board of Agriculture is made also a Board of Forestry.
The Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture ten years ago offered liberal
prizes for tree-planting, and this year has awarded a thousand dollars for one planta-
tion. Arbor Day has also been established within the lasttwo years. The State Census
of 1885 showed that the woodland in this State was then more than 30 per cent. in ex-
cess of what it was twenty years before.

Connecticut, within the last two years, has enacted a law exempting planted forests
from taxation for a period of twenty years, and has established Arbor Day and con-
nected its observance with the public schools. The Granges in the State have been
prominent and efficient in the observance of this day.

New York is the only Eastern State which has any public lands or any forests which
are under government control. Of the nearly 4,000,000 acres constituting the Adiron-
dack Wilderness, the State owns nearly 1,000,000. It owns also more than 50,000 acres
in the Catskill region, south of the Adirondacks. This State, therefore, has before it,
in the main, the same problem of forestry which is before the Federal Government as
to the management of its 80,000,000 acres of forest lands. After much discussion of
the subject and long delay in taking action, while fires and thieves were making havoc

34

of this most valuable forest tract, the State in 1885 appointed a Forest Commission,
consisting of three commissioners. Already very gratifying results have come from
the appointment of this Commission. The Report for 1887 states that the ravages of
fire in the forest region have been almost entirely stopped, while timber thieving and
other depredations have been suppressed, and $14,000 have been recovered by actions
against former trespassers. The protection of this forest is an instructive illus-
tration of the wide extent of the beneficial influences of proper forest management.
The prevention of fires in the forests belonging to the State has removed a cause of
frequent fires in the forests adjoining them, the property of individuals. The value of
such property has in consequence been much enhanced.

It deserves mention also that the Legislature of this State in 1887 established Arbor
Day.

Pennsylvania is manifesting a steady growth of interest in forestry. Two years ago
a State Forestry Association was formed and branch County Associations have also
been established. The Society has shown a vigorous life from the beginning. It has
held frequent meetings for discussion, has given to the public lectures on the subject
of forestry in its various aspects, and has published, from time to time, a sprightly
paper entitled ‘‘ Forest Leaves,” the only strictly forestry publication of which our
country can boast. Through this publication and in other ways the Pennsylvania
Forestry Association gave your Committee important aid in the endeavor to secure the
passage of a national forestry bill at the last session of the Federal Congress.

The last Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act for the encouragement of forest
culture, by one provision of which a premium is paid to persons who plant forest trees.
The Legislature also appointed a Commission to inquire into the subject of forestry
and propose a proper act for the encouragement of timber-culture and the preservation
of the forests.

As we pass from the Northern to the Southern States, which are generally much more
heavily wooded than the former, we find that less attention has been given to forestry.
This is only natural and what might have been expected. ‘The dense southern forests
have not yet been depleted as have those of the North. A sparser population, a milder
climate, and fewer manufacturing establishments have caused the demand for fuel,
which is everywhere the chief demand upon the forests, to be less than in the former
region. But it is not too soon to give attention to the interests of forestry here. The
condition of things has been rapidly changing within a few years. The South has been
opening mines and building furnaces, factories, and railroads with great rapidity of
late. An increasing demand for her lumber has also arisen abroad as well as
in the Eastern and Western States, occasioned partly by the fast diminishing supply
of the northern white pine, which has so long been the staple lumber of commerce.
These causes, taken together with the wasteful methods of the turpentine industry as
too often practised, call for effective measures on the part of the Gulf States for the
protection and careful utilization of their forest wealth.

The conventions which have been held in this region during the last three years for
the discussion of the subject, the formation of the Southern Forestry Congress, and the
meeting of the two Forestry Congresses here at this time and their happy union
effected, encourage the hope that these States, so richly endowed by nature, will pur-
sue such an intelligent and conservative system in the management of their timber
lands as will be in harmony with all their other interests and prevent them from suf-
fering, as so many States and Nations have done, from the reckless consumption of their
forests.

It is to be counted one of the encouraging signs that a beginning at least has been
made in giving instruction in forestry at the University of North Carolina. Georgia
has made a movement for the appointment of a Forest Commissioner for the State,
and for other action calculated to promote her forest interests. She has also adopted
Arbor Day. A hopeful movement has also been made in Florida. Two Forestry Con-
gresses have been held in that State, and Arbor Day has been observed with much zeal.
The formation of a State Forestry Association in Texas during the last year also de-
serves to be chronicled. Kentucky and Tennessee, well wooded, and distinguished
for the predominance of the most valuable hard woods in their forests, are showing an
encouraging interest in forestry. Both have recently adopted Arbor Day and have
established it in connection with their public schools. :

Passing to the Western and Northwestern States, there is in almost all an increasing
interest in forestry. There is a great contrast of situation between the northern
prairie States and those in the lower valley of the Mississippi and on the Gulf. Inthe
latter the demand is for the conservation and economic use of what is now an abund-
ant and in some cases an overabundant supply of tree growth. In the former it is for
the absolute creation of forests by planting trees where until recently there were none
except along the borders of streams. In Kansas and Nebraska to plant trees is one of
the first necessities of life. A house is hardly more needful. In Arkansas our reports

35

say that the only interest in forestry is ‘‘ to get rid of the timber.” Nebraska has only
3 per cent. of woodland. Arkansas has 81 per cent. It is not so surprising as other-
wise it might be, that Nebraska originated Arbor Day or tree-planting day, and that she
has now nearly 1,000,000 acres of planted forest. The visible appearance of that great
State is quite changed from what it was a few years ago. There is an enthusiasm for
trees there, as there is in some of the neighboring States, which promises well for the
future agricultural and other interests of that region. Where a people have planted
trees they will care for them and not allow their forests to be ravaged by fires or be
made pasture ground for cattle.

Tree planting is practised in Kansas with as much energy as in Nebraska. The Hor-
ticultural Society of the former State is distinguished for the attention which it gives to
the subject of forestry. Its annual reports abound in valuable information upon the
subject. Early in the last year the legislature passed an act establishing the office of
Commissioner of Forestry and providing for two experiment stations for the purpose
of growing and distributing, to those applying for them, trees suitable to the soil and
climate of Kansas.

Iowa ranks with Kansas and Nebraska in the interest taken in forestry matters. Iowa
was one of the first, if not the first, of our States to engage in the teaching of practical
and scientific forestry, instruction on this subject having been given for several years
in her Agricultural College. Arbor Day was early adopted in Iowa. The Horticultu-
ral Society offers premiums every year for tree-planting, and publishes pamphlets of
valuable instruction on the subject, and the law makes it obligatory upon the directors
of each school district to set out and protect twelve or more shade trees on each school-
house site where there are not that number of trees already growing.

Similar is the condition of things in Minnesota. A Forestry Association has been in
existence there for several years, and publishes a forest-tree manual, which has been
of much service not only in Minnesota but in other States.

Michigan, as her great pine forests have become well-nigh exhausted by fires and the
lumberman’s axe, is becoming more economical in the use of what remain and is en-
couraging seeding and planting. The State Board of Agriculture has recently been
constituted by the Legislature a Board of Forestry for the purpose of devising and
proposing the needed legislation in behalf of forestry. An important and zealous forest
convention has been held during the present year, and the State is now being canvassed
by the Commission for the purpose of obtaining the information needed for the proper
discharge of the trust committed to it. A class of twenty-five students has been receiv-
ing instruction at the Agricultural College.

What the value of the forests of many of our States is or may be, from a material
point of view alone, and how deserving of proper protection and husbanding, may be
seen from the fact that the estimated value of the white-pine product of Michigan dur-
ing the last twenty-five years has not been less than $870,000,000, and that the annual
product, which, in 1864, was estimated to be worth $8,000,000, was, in 1884, worth
$67,000,000.

We pass by the Rocky Mountain region, the forests of which belong largely to the
General Government, and are, as we know, without any care or protection deserving
the name. Wide-sweeping fires consume year by year millions of acres. The
United States refuse to expend the pittance that would guard these forests and encour-
age their increase, and they are left to the plunderers and the flames. Colorado must
be mentioned, however, as possessing the distinction of being the first and only State
to make a constitutional provision for the protection of forest property. Her devoted
and efficient Forest Commissioner has done much to develop among the people of that
State a proper feeling in regard to the forests, and has recently published a forest map
of the State.

Such is the result of a hasty outlook over our wide-spread country and a survey of
the present condition of our forests. May we not take encouragement from the sight
for the continued prosecution of our work? If we can point to no great and conspicu-
ous advance, obvious to all, we do see signs of progress in almost every direction. The
seed sown is beginning at least to germinate. The establishment of Forestry Associa-
tions and Forest Commissioners in so many States shows an increasing and permanent
interest in the subject of forestry. The institution of Arbor Day in ten States during
the last two years, in addition to those which had previously adopted it, thus
bringing almost all our States and Territories into line in the observance of this
day, is a good omen. Every such thing tells in the right direction. It is some-
thing to have the children in our schools instructed about trees. It will give them
many happy and useful thoughts and many happy bours. It will open to them many
wide doors of knowledge. They will grow up with the trees as their friends. This
generation may be the destroyers of the trees; the next will surely be their protectors.

36

THE INTEREST OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN FORESTRY IN VIEW OF THE
PRESENT CONDITION OF THE LUMBER INTEREST.

BY CHARLES MOHR, PH. D., MOBILE, ALA.

In view of the present activity of the industries depending immediately on the pro-
ducts of the forest, the question naturally arises, what are the steps necessary to best
secure the interests of the individual owners of forest lands? In its discussion on this
occasion the 180 million acres of forest woodlands are referred to belonging to the
farms within the Atlantic forest region, covering fully one-third of its whole forest area.
It is to the farmers, the owners of this vast forest area, that one might hopefully look
for its protection and preservation, as a class more than any other affected by the evils
resulting from the destruction of the forest cover of a country if carried beyond a cer-
tain limit. Throughout the States embraced within this region possessing yet the
greatest timber wealth in their virgin forests, in the Lake States of the north, and in
the Southern States from eastern Texas and Arkansas to the Atlantic coast, the lum-
bering interests have of late years vastly increased and with them the strain upon the
resources of the forests. Since the beginning of this decade great strides have been
made not only in the increase of the annual output of timber, lumber, and all other
forest products, but also in the improvements introduced at the mills tending to the
greatest production at the least expense and in the utilization of a large percentage of
material before thrown away as useless waste. To meet the demands of these constantly
increasing interests, at least on this side of the Mississippi river, the timber lands in
the southern lumbering districts fronting the water-courses and railroad lines have to
a great extent become exhausted within the distance to render the hauling of the timber
by teams to these lines of transportation any longer profitable. In order to overcome
this difficulty canals and ditches have been dug wherever practicable, and many miles
of tramways were constructed, equipped with iron rails and steam power, penetrating
the forests to the very divides which separate the basin of one river from another.
Enterprises of the latter kind require the outlay of vast sums of money and are costly
to maintain. Temporary as they are, to render them profitable they must be kept
working to their fullest capacity and without loss of time. Consequently, wherever
they have been introduced the depletion of the timber lands within reach is effected at
arate never existing before. ‘The resulting production under the high pressure of
capital is unavoidably leading to its concentration and is carried on with the sole object
of speediest returns, without heed of the future. The exhaustion of the white-pine
forests in the North, almost accomplished within the past quarter of a century, offers a
startling instance on this point. From the depleted districts of that lumbering region
large amounts of capital have been transferred to the new fields open for investment in
the pine forests of the South. With the progress in the building of new railroad lines
throughout the Southern States the timber wealth of districts heretofore inaccessible
is constantly opened to markets. In fact, the forces which have led to the depletion
of the timber wealth of the North are at present at work with increasing energy in the
South, and the conclusion cannot be avoided that, under the strain to which they are
and will be exposed, the depletion of the Southern forests will scarcely take a much
greater length of time. The results of this great progress in the development of the
resources of the forests in this section, however, have been far from proving satisfactory
to the private owners of forest lands, either in the timber trade or in the working of
the pine forests for their resinous products. Eager to realize from what such owners
are wont to regard as the most unprofitable part of their property, they are too apt to
throw at the first chance the products of their forest woodlands upon the market in
ignorance of its requirements. In consequence, overstocking and competition caused
their disposal at prices, if not resulting in actual loss, in most cases far below their
actual value. The frequently occurring depression in the prices of forest products fall
most heavily upon the owner of the land from which they were taken, as he finds him-
self deprived of a profit not likely to accrue to him again from the same source. Irrep-
arable are the losses sustained in that way, chiefly caused by overproduction, by the
owners of pine timber lands appropriated to the manufacture of naval stores. Year
after year the destruction of tens of thousands of acres involved in this industry has
been accomplished without any adequate return for such damage.

With such facts before them the first step to be taken by the private owners of tim-
ber lands in order to secure their interests would naturally be to hold on to them by
all means, and to keep them intact from invasion until sure of the proper remuneration.
The time is near when property of this kind properly protected and cared for will give
his estate the most lasting and ever-increasing value. In support of this assertion only
the fact need to be pointed to, that at present the annual products of the forests of
the United States represent a value of not less than eight hundred million dollars, exceed-
ing that of any other product taken from the soil, vegetable or mineral. Further, the
timber lands of the public domain, those owned by the several States and by the rail-

37

road corporations, are rapidly taken up by capitalists and will within a short time be
out of the market. The opportunities to acquire such lands or their usufruct at
mere nominal prices as they existed at the beginning of this decade have gone by
forever. With an advanced public opinion forest property is less open to trespasses
than before, and with the increasing facilities of common caution to make their pro-
ducts available, the prices of timber lands are steadily advancing and nearing the level
of their intrinsic value. With the general recognition of these facts the owners will
find it to their interest to manage the resources of their woodlands on principles of
sound economy and bestow upon them the same attention given to their lands under
cultivation. In no other way can the farmer serve his own and the interests of those
depending upon him better than to take time by the forelock in taking without delay
the proper steps to that end. The pioneer stage in the life of the farming population
on this side of the Mississippi river has passed. The risks to leave a homestead for
new fields in order to improve his condition have increased to a degree to wed its in-
telligent owner to the clod, and to seek his prosperity in the utmost development of
the advantages nearest to him in the improvement of his place. In the systematic
Management and improvement of his woodlands and their extension over his lands that
are waste or unprofitable under tillage, the farmer will find the strongest auxiliaries to
add to its permanent value. By their aid he will maintain conditions essential to keep
up the productiveness of his soil, conditions most conducive to health, in many ways
adding to his necessities and comforts and conditions, that if not immediately will with-
out fail eventually add to his income.

The first steps to that end are simple and clearly indicated in the adoption of meas-
ures of protection and in assisting the efforts of nature to restore where deterioration
and destruction have taken place. Before any other the forest must be kept free from
the chief agents of its destruction—the invasion of fire and live stock. To their sup-
pression untiring efforts must be made by word and by action, not only in securing
the power of the State in the passing of the necessary laws, but to create that state of
public sentiment which compels their rigid enforcement. Next let the axe be used
judiciously. The indiscriminate clearing of lands for cultivation rendered unprofitable
after a few crops, and abandoned, to be left to utter deterioration by wind and rain, is
to be avoided as one of the greatest mistakes in the management of a farm ; also the
useless waste of timber as commonly practised. In the cutting of timber with the
prospect of proper returns and at the same time to make room for the younger growth
every precaution should be taken to avoid injury to the latter, and the débris removed
to lessen the danger and force of fire. Under a temperate clime and blessed with a
bounteous rain-fall throughout every season of the year, this Atlantic forest region, with
the limits as defined, from its northern limits to the Gulf shore, presents conditions
favorable to tree growth equalled by but a few other portions of the globe, and unsur-
passed in possibilities for its promotion by man. However, to turn them with the best
results to his especial uses requires close observation and study of the workings of
nature in the light of the understanding of her laws. Though great progress has
been made of late years to promote the interests of agriculture in the way of public
instruction, and lavish as the means are to be devoted to the teaching of its theory and
practice, but a few isolated efforts have as yet been made to afford to the private owners
of forest lands the light of scientific knowledge to aid them in the management of the
180 million acres of their forest woodlands, and in the restoration of the forest growth
on the 30 million acres of waste lands connected with their farms, to render them a
source of income and torestore those impoverished to their original fertility. Hence
another and not less important step to secure the interests of the private owners of
forest lands is to insist on the adoption of a course of instruction imparting the proper
knowledge in those branches of science upon which the principles of forestry are rest-
ing, by the universities and the agricultural colleges supported by the State.

To the question, will the attention to the principles of forestry pay with us, can be
given almost as satisfactory a reply as to the question, will intensified farming on cor-
rect principles pay. To cite in support of this, in detail, the financial results achieved
in those countries of Europe where the management of the forest forms a branch of
the public service, or the achievements of a wise, energetic, and honest administration
of the forests in India and the Cape of Good Hope, countries twenty-five years ago with
their forests as open to destruction by ignorance and rapacity as the forests of this
country are to-day, would exceed the limits of this discourse.

That even under the existing disadvantages such management of the woodlands bears
results satisfactory to their private owners is clearly demonstrated by many instances
wherever the scarcity of forest product is beginning to make itself felt. The advance
in the value of untillable lands deprived of their original timber growth in New Jersey ;
the promising state of the forests of white pine of second growth in Maine; the success-
ful reclamation of worthless tracts of land on the coast of New England by restoring
upon them the forest growth; the promising young forests, the results of plantings

+

38

undertaken during the last quarter of a century in many of the States of the North-
west, can serve as encouraging examples, well calculated to incite to similar efforts in
other parts of this forest region.

Immense as its resources must yet appear, and possessed of every facility to make
them available for the great markets of our own country and those of foreign lands, the
South is destined to be the chief centre of the lumbering interests on this side of the
Rocky Mountains. The supplies stored up in the forests of this southern section of
the Atlantic region must henceforth supplant those heretofore furnished by others
deemed but a short while ago equally rich in their resources, but now exhausted. From
these southern forests it is that, besides the supplies for the markets east of the Missis-
sippi river and those demanded for foreign export, the needs must be furnished of the
practically treeless territory bordering upon their western limits—a territory of vast
extent, destined to support millions and rapidly filling up with an energetic and thrifty
population.

In view of such facts, which cannot be disputed, the work should not be longer de-
layed to secure for the future the advantages flowing from the inheritance of such vast
forest wealth enjoyed at present—a work in the performance of which the farmer
should take a most active part as one most directly interested.

NOTES OF SOME OF THE FOREST FEATURES OF FLORIDA, WITH ITEMS
OF TREE GROWTH IN THAT STATE.

BY MRS. ELLEN CALL LONG, TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA.

So much of the State of Florida as lies north and west of a line extending from the
head of Charlott’s Harbor northwest to the Atlantic coast, about the 29th parallel of
north latitude, is embraced in and forms the southeastern limit of what is known as
the “Southern Maritime Pine Belt” in the subdivision of the Atlantic region of North
American forest area.

This Maritime Pine Belt of the Southern States, extending southward from the 36th
parallel of north latitude along the Atlantic from 100 to 150 miles in width to the
points above indicated in Florida, and thence westwardly along the Mexican Gulf coast
to the valley of the Mississippi, embraces within its limits no finer body of merchanta-
ble timber than is to be found in the State of Florida. The species giving identity to
this division of American forest is Pinus palustris, or Southern long-leafed pine, than
which no other one kind of American tree has a more exalted value, not alone for
lumbering purposes, but in the vast supply of tar, pitch, turpentine, and resin derived
therefrom.

The recent application of the green foliage of this tree to the manufacture of ma-
terial for the covering of cotton bales will add only another feature of enormous value
to the forest resources of this Southern pine belt.

The U. S. census returns for 1880 report 1,853,582,000 feet of sawed lumber (board
measure) manufactured during that year from the Southern belt.

Of this output, which would lay a close floor one inch thick over an area of more
than 66 square miles, Florida is said to have furnished about 200,000,000 feet, or some-
thing over the one-ninth part.

Next, perhaps, in commercial importance and value among Florida’s forest products
is the extensive growth of cypress trees.

Within late years this timber has come more generally into use than formerly.
While softer than the timber of the long-leafed pine, it is much lighter and tougher.
It has latterly come greatly into vogue in European countries for ship-building. It
has greatly superseded in the South the use of northern white pine for the manufac-
ture of doors, sash, blinds, and pails. It supplies the great demand for fish and syrup
barrel material, and is par eacellence the shingle timber of the Southern States.

One other item of great value to Florida in her forest growth is red cedar (Juniperus
virginiana), from which millions of pencils are annually manufactured.

The wood of thistree grown in Florida is peculiarly fitted for pencil making by reason
of its softness, smoothness of texture, and freeness from knots and wind-shakes. The
celebrated Faber and Eagle Pencil Companies have for years operated saw-mills at
Cedar Keys, on the Mexican Gulf, where the cedar logs are sawn into merchantable
blocks and sticks, and sent north to the pencil mills.

The absence in Florida of a bureau of statistics for the collection and compilation
of data relating to internal resources puts it quite out of the power of the writer to
offer any definite figures as to the amount of merchantable timber standing in the State.

Any estimates, quantitative or qualitative, that may have heretofore been made upon
this subject are purely hypothetical, and worthy of very slight consideration.

Much incorrect information has been furnished the public on the subject of Florida’s
forest areas and the supply of different timbers, a striking example of which occurs in

39

a beautifully colored map of the State in the census report of 1880, wherein the four
great counties of Jefferson, Leon, Gadsden, and Jackson are excluded from the timber-
growing district. t

It is, however, of some of the peculiarities of Florida’s climate and soil, as related to
Sorest reproduction, that the writer feels authorized to speak rather than of the economic
and commercial values of her present forest supply.

There is, perhaps, no section of the United States so well suited to the rapid growth
of forest trees as the whole State of Florida, and such parts of Alabama, Mississippi,
and Louisiana as lie adjacent to the sea-board. The long growing seasons, the regu-
larity of annual rain-fall, the average humidity of the atmosphere, high summer tem-
peratures, absence of rocky sterility in the soils, and the very general distribution
throughout the section indicated of the tertiary limestone formation, accompanied by
widely diffused marine shell deposits and outcropping of phosphatic matter, give to
this region conditions peculiarly fitted to vigorous tree growth.

The three agencies which militate appreciably against tree growth in this section
are, in the order of their destructiveness, forest fires, cyclones, and lightning. The
latter of these destroying causes, while far less conspicuous to the casual observer than
either of the other two, is nevertheless a very potent factor in big-tree destruction
along the gulf sea-board during the late summer months, when severe electric storms
are of daily occurrence.

The writer, in the month of September, 1886, counted eighty-six large pines, that had
been recently struck by lightning, that could be seen from the carriage road along forty
miles of travel through the pine woods southwest of Tallahassee.

The aggregation of such destruction, if equally distributed throughout the coast
country, amounts annually to a great many hundreds of thousands of feet of first-
class lumber destroyed by this means; for it is generally the tallest and largest trees
that the fiery bolts light upon.

About the time of the autumnal equinox severe gales are apt to prevail in western
Florida and along the coast to Texas. While these storms frequently assume cyclonic
characteristics, they never acquire the velocity and severity that attaches to them in
the Northwest, owing, we presume, to the fact that the Gulf coast region is so much
nearer the breeding place or centre of the disturbance.

While these equinoctial gales do destroy considerable quantities of timber in the
southwestern regions of the Southern Maritime Pine Belt, they accomplish far less
destruction than would be the case were this belt located further away from the storm

, centres.

‘* Forest fires” is a term of very different signification throughout the Southern pine
belt from the meaning attached to it in the North and West. Therethey are destroyers
of forests, pure and simple, without any economic advantages attending their occur-
rence.

But there is sound reason for believing that the annual burning of the wooded
regions of the South is the prime cause and preserver of the grand forests of P. palustris
to be found there; that, but for the effect of these burnings, the pine forests would
never have been, and but for the continued annual wood firing that prevails so gener-
ally throughout the South the Maritime Pine Belt would soon disappear and give place
to a jungle of hardwood and deciduous trees.

In the persistent application of the law of the survival of the fittest Pinus palustris
alone has been able to contend with the condition of fire as it annually occurs over
the grassy surface of the Southern forest.

In their earlier stages of growth all other species of Southern trees are not only slow

_ In their growth, but their dying foliage is combustible, their stems and young shoots
are bare and unprotected, and their buds and growing eyes are on the outside, exposed
to the flame of the burning grass and fallen leaves as the fire creeps over the surface
of the land, so that with each recurring annual burning all plants which have sprung
up in the woodlands since the preceding spring, are overtaken and readily destroyed
when the dry grass and leaves take fire in the fall, and are thus perpetually prevented
from gaining a foothold and arriving at so advanced a stage of growth as to lift their
buds above the reach of flames.

On the other hand, the long-leafed pine shoots up from the spring-sown seed with
astonishing vigor, attaining an average altitude of about 16 inches by the time of the
occurrence of the winter fires. Its young stem is without buds and eyes on the outer
surface, and this surface throughout its length is protected by a dense growth of pecu-
liarly non-combustible green foliage that will not blaze except when subjected to much
more intense heat than generally results from the slowly burning wire-grass covering
the pine forest. The growing bud of P. palustris is also at the very top of its stem,
closely encased in a thick pellicle of protecting green. Thus this tree is enabled to
survive, to become proud master of the situation, and by annually reproducing its
species to perpetuate the grand forest of the Southern Maritime Pine Belt.

40

The truth of this theory of the predominance of P. palustris in the Southern pine
belt has thousands of practical illustrations in the experience and observation of per-
sons throughout the region in question whose residence has been long enough to enable
them to note the results where intervening roadways, farm clearings, and other obstruc-
tions have interrupted the annual march of fire in the pine woods. Localities protected
for a short time from fire rapidly become covered with oak, hickory, magnolia, dog-
wood, &c., and become in time ‘‘ Hammock” lands. The presence of hard wood un-
derbrush is prohibitory of the growth of P. palustris.

The statute-books of almost every Southern State contain enactments prohibitory of
setting fire to the woods, and severe penalties are attached to violations of the law.
There may be sound reason for such legislation, since great loss of property often re-
sults from burning fences and buildings. But viewed from a forestry standpoint we
believe the total abolition of forest fires in the South would mean the annihilation of
her grand lumbering pineries.

In the absence of carefully collected data we are unable to say anthoritatively how
long a time is requisite to enable a forest of P. palustris to attain marketable propor-
tions from the seed. Our personal observation along the line of the Tallahassee and
St. Mark’s Railway during the last 40 years would induce us to believe that from 60 to
80 years under conditions existing there would make of palustris seedlings trees that
would cut an average of 500-ft. board measure, scaled as is now customary in Southern
mills, where the methods are wasteful and rarely over 60% of a tree is taken to the saw.

Ex-Gov. Geo. F. Drew, of Florida, a man of extensive lumbering experience, is au-
thority for the assertion that in cutting timber from his extensive holdings in Suwannee
and Madison counties in Florida he could take from the forest all pines of a profitable
merchantable size and get from the same land as much more of like quality every 20

ears.
‘ In connection with the assertion heretofore made of the peculiar fitness of the Mex-
ican Gulf region for the rapid growth of tree plantation, it may be of interest to note
some observations of the writer.

On an old plantation in Wakulla county, Fla., now the property of Mrs. Fannie Sul-
livan, of Sibley, Ills., there isa dense growth of young white oak timber covering,
perhaps, 100 acres. These trees are so thickly standing as to have pruned one another
of lateral growth, and are tall and tapering, clear of limbs for about 35 feet. We think
the lot would now, if felled and hewn, square an average of 8 inches in 30-foot lengths.
The ground they grow upon was cultivated in corn during the summer of 1864, and the
old corn ridges are still discernible under the trees.

On the Call homestead, near Tallahassee, where the writer was born and has since
resided, an avenue of red cedar was set out with one and two-year-old seedlings in
1863—’4. During the summer of 1880 the trees in this avenue, numbering 60 or more,
were cut down and converted into fence posts. No exact measurements were made of
their size, but the majority of them furnished two cuts post length of 7 feet, and each
cut, when split into quarters, made four fence post of dimensions sufficient to admit of
an in-cut at bottom and top to receive a 4x2-inch rail for rail and picket fence. The
writer has seen rafts of cedar logs of no greater size on their way to the pencil mills at
Cedar Keys.

On the same premises, during the memory of the writer, five black walnut trees
have attained since 1859 an average circumference of 67 inches five feet from the
ground. Thirty-nine water oaks, transplanted in 1858, have averaged a growth in
circumference of 9 feet 7 inches, the maximum being 14 feet 3 inches, the minimum
5 féet 2 inches. Forty-one live oaks in 30 years have made an average growth of 7
feet 9 inches in circumference. Five red cedars in 50 years have made an average
growth of 5 feet 4 inchesin circumference, the maximum being 7 feet 6 inches.

Among varieties of trees, the systematic planting and culture of which in the Gulf
coast region might be attended with fairly early profit, where areas are extensive and
cheap and the conditions of climate and soil are so conducive to rapid maturity, poplar,
ash, wild cherry, black locust, walnut, white oak, red and white cedar, catalpa, and
Pride of China, are all kinds that experience shows admirably suited to existing condi-
tions, and are possessed of commercial value attainable in from 15 to 30 years.

The planting of nut-bearing trees as a profitable investment is rapidly gaining favor
in Middle and West Florida. Pecans and English walnuts are very popular for this
purpose. The income derivable from the crop of nuts is very great per acre. Trees
begin bearing the seventh year, the annual product increasing with age.

Wooded pasture lands, with nut-bearing trees overhead, and Texas and Kentucky
blue grass, and Bermuda grass under foot, made rich and green by the golden tread of
merino sheep and Angora goats, is a realization of the near future from Ponchartrain
to Suwannee that will rapidly supersede cotton fields and waste places, and in time sur-
pass even the great fruit-tree culture of Florida.

A proper conclusion of these rambling notes may be an allusion to the thorough fit-

41

ness of conditions in Florida for the growth of the mulberry and the profitable produc-
tion of merchantable silk cocoons.

The writer, feeling great interest in the introduction of this industry into Florida,
spent a year in Philadelphia studying the subject under the auspices of the Woman’s
Silk Culture Association of the United States, and has since experimented for several
succeeding years in the propagation in Florida of Morus alba and M. multicaulis, the
rearing of silk worms, and the marketing of their product.

Such experience has practically demonstrated the facility and profitableness of the
business, and hopes are entertained that in time it may become an established industry
among housewives and their child-help, resulting in giving healthful intellectual em-
ployment to tender hands that cannot usefully employ themselves in the rougher farm
work, and yet add several hundred dollars annually to the earnings of every household.
Less than half the expense, care, and percentage of risk and loss attending the ordinary
farm care of poultry will result, it is estimated, in many fold the profits attending the
poultry interest of farmers’ wives. There should be in every orchard a square devoted
to growing mulberry shoots, and in every country household a shed-room for cocoons.
Six weeks steady attention in April and May will give to any active woman and her
family of children from 25 to 100 lbs. of marketable cocoons, worth, when of good
quality, about $2 per pound.

When it is considered how immense would be the aggregated revenue derivable from
this simple industry, should every farmer’s wife produce only ten pounds annually of
cocoons, it is to be wondered that public authority does not hold out some induce-
ments towards establishing the occupation of silk culture.

A very little earnestness upon this subject just at this juncture would lead to grand
results in the immediate future, nor do we think the subject disconnected with the
purposes of our American Forestry Congress.

FREE LUMBER AND FORESTRY.
BY ADOLPH LEUE,
Secretary of the Ohio State Forestry Bureau, Cincinnati, Ohio.

In view of the fact that most, if not all, Forestry Associations in this country did at
one time or another very emphatically denounce the tariff on Canadian lumber, and
that, as far as I know, all friends of our forests consider this tariff detrimental to the
forestry interest of the United States, one might well hesitate to present an entirely
opposite view; and I do this at the risk of being called a rank heretic.

Before I proceed to present my view of this important question permit me to state
that I, too, was one of those who favored the removal of the tariff on Canadian lumber,
and, as a member of the Committee of the Ohio State Forestry Association, appointed
to memorialize the Congress of the United States on this subject, signed the memorial
drawn by the late Dr. John A. Warder. At that time I was of the firm opinion that
the proposed measure would advance the forestry interest of the United States. Among
those who favored the removal of the tariff on timber, and who interested themselves
in pushing the question with great vigor, were Canadian lumbermen. Many of the
most able articles appearing in newspapers published in this country were written or
inspired by Canadians. My suspicion being aroused, I began carefully to study jour-
nals devoted to the lumbering interest, and, I confess, that from them I learned more
about the timber resources of this country than from all other sources combined. The
result was, I became a convert to protection, believing—

1. That the reduction or the removal of the tariff on lumber will not lower the price
of timber in the United States.

2. That it will tend to a more rapid removal of the woodlands in the more densely-
populated States.

3. That it will retard the development of a rational system of forestry.

The claim that the removal of the tariff on lumber will bring down the price of lum-
ber is a very invalid one, because it is the opinion of those who are best able to judge
that it will in no way influence the price of lumber. What will be the effect?

In Ohio about ten million acres of woodland were cleared during the last thirty-four
years, which is equivalent to about thirty-seven per cent. of the superficial area of the
State ; and this process of clearing is still going on, because the farmers assert that it
does not pay them to keep their land in forests. Part of the timber thus cut is sold,
another is used for fence-posts, rails, &c., and the rest is cut into cord-wood. The
land cleared is used for pasturing purposes or is turned into plow-land.

If, now, at the present price of timber, the farmer finds his wood-lot or bush, as he
calls it, unprofitable, how much more will he find it so when, as the advocates of the
removal of the tariff predict, the price of timber will be reduced? It is, therefore,

42

more than probable that the remoyal of the tariff on lumber will not retard the de-
struction of our natural forests, but hasten it.

That, at the prospect of continued low prices of timber, the planting of so-called arti-
tificial forests will be entirely out of the question is fairly beyond controversy. All
efforts at the development of an American system of forestry worthy of the name will
be without effect.

In this country practical forestry, like any other occupation or investment, must rest
on the sound basis of a fair profit, and the better the prospects for such profit are the
more attention it will receive. The more attention we bestow upon our forests the
more secure will be the future prosperity of our country ; for be it ever remembered
that the wealth, power, and prosperity of nations chiefly depend upon a successful
agriculture, and that a permanent successful agriculture cannot exist without the aid
of a wise system of forestry.

Instead of reducing, or even removing, the tariff on lumber, it would indeed bea
wiser policy to double it, and thus give an impetus to the planting and cultivating of
new forests.

PUBLIC PARKS AND PUBLIC FORESTS.
M. G. KERN, 8T. LOUIS, MO.

The conditions under which the creation of extensive public parks has been brought
about in various leading Western cities appears to a close observer as a striking par-
allel to those which are encountered by the advocates of public forests.

It seems, then, natural that the results which are attempted by the advocates of the
wider conception of forest culture might be obtained in the same manner as we have
obtained our public parks.

Public progress is ever dependent upon a leader, in whose wake the masses follow.
The rural and suburban improvements indispensable in our day to a city aspiring to
metropolitan rank are planned by the few, but quite often in the beginning are bitterly
opposed by the larger portion of the population. After much prejudice is combated
and lived down, a majority declares in favor of the project. The Legislature of the
State steps into the arena at this point and authorizes the city or all the cities of a cer-
tain grade, within the borders of the State, to expend certain sums for that specific
purpose, to be levied by special taxation.

Why should not the Legislature of a State enact a similar law authorizing counties
to plant forests on the same basis, not merely for the sake of experimenting in arbori-
culture, but for a permanent source of revenue in time to come ? How many waste
and idle acres could in this way be transformed into valuable forests at a comparatively
insignificant expense to the people! The proposition when first placed before the people
may not be sufficiently understood in its full bearing on the future public weal, but
would open wide the gates for thorough agitation by which public intelligence would
ever be the gainer. How many valuable forests, and pleasant, sheltered, park-like sur-
roundings to thriving cities and villages, could in this way be created, and what an
impetus would home forest culture thus receive.

The public and charitable institutions of many States are quite frequently endowed
or surrounded by extensive tracts of land, which, if not lying waste, in most cases are
but poorly cultivated. Where such is the case the Legislature should be petitioned and
urged by all honorable means to make an appropriation for arboriculture on these ill-
used Jands. Thus, in a decade, perhaps, the respective institutions might be sur-
rounded and adorned by stately groves and sheltering forests. A united effort on the
part of the friends of arboriculture would accomplish wonders in every State of the
Union.

I may mention in this connection a plan which the Missouri State Horticultural
Society is vigorously agitating. The State acquired a few years ago a section of most
valuable high prairie land, in close proximity to the town of Nevada, and has erected
thereon a series of substantial buildings as an asylum forthe insane. The Horticul-
tural Society will petition the Legislature to devote 400 acres of this tract to forest
culture and ask an appropriatlon corresponding to the character of the enterprise.

It is intended to raise at the same time a large stock of seedling trees, for distribu-
tion throughout the State. When the groves and forests have attained the age to need
no longer the fostering care of the Society, the land, ‘‘ with all the trees thereon and
round about its borders,” will be returned to the exclusive use of the asylum, which
will, by that means, become one of the proudest land-marks of the empire State of the
West.

Another subject I wish to direct your attention to.

What has forestry to hope from the action of Congress in favor of experimental sta-
tions for the promotion of all agricultural interests of the United States? Will it be
recognized as an agricultural interest or be counted out in the division of the funds so

43

liberally appropriated by the Fiftieth Congress? The answer admits, of necessity,
great diversity of opinion, and many of the orthodox scientists and managers of agri-
cultural colleges may refuse to give arboriculture an even chance with agriculture
proper. Fortunately, there is a silver lining to the darkness surrounding still this im-
portant issue.

The liberal appropriation of Congress to each State will probably have to be ex-
pended under certain conditions and restrictions. Congress has wisely created a new
division of the Department of Agriculture, a Bureau of Correspondence with the Ex-
perimental Stations of the Union, by which harmony of action and a strict account-
ability of results will soon be brought about, and further legislation of Congress will
tend to produce the harmonies of an orchestra and stop the continuous blowing of one
horn alone.

The appointment by the Commissioner of Prof. Atwater as the head of this Bureau
is regarded everywhere with great favor. The Bureau has at present no power to pre-
scribe or dictate a general plan by which the stations of all the States are to be con-
ducted, and is merely a medium of correspondence and consultation between the dif-
ferent sections of the country. Through this Bureau it will soon be apparent with
what material the several stations are manned, and the Bureau will act as a regulator
in bringing into proper recognition the various interests equally needful to the de-
velopment of our country, but not nowsoregarded. Through it the claims of forestry
and arboriculture in general, now largely overlooked, will receive proper attention.
Let us consider for a moment what aid might thus be secured towards replacing in
time a small part of the valuable forests of former times by the inauguration of a
national system of replanting.

Let us suppose that one-fifteenth, say $1,000, of the annual appropriation to the sta-
tion of each State were devoted to experiments and tests in tree culture throughout the
United States and realize what might be accomplished with even this modest sum.
Progress in this direction will seem slow, since we are apt to make all calculation on
the basis of big crops and quick returns; but time and intelligence will solve this
problem in due season, and the solution may be nearer at hand than we anticipate
to-day.

FORESTRY AND NATIONAL WELFARE.
BY MARTIN CONRAD, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

The first provision that was made by the all-wise Creator for the existence of man-
kind upon the face of the earth was to plant a garden with every kind of tree that was
pleasant to the sight and good for food. It was ordained by the Omniscient that trees
are essential to the life, comfort, and happiness of his creatures, and no people can
flourish who ignore this decree.

I believe in trees ; I believe in forests; and I believe that no government can remain
a power among the nations of the earth whose people do not protect and foster them.
The forests of Palestine and Persia were destroyed, and, as a consequence, the people
sank from a high state of civilization to barbarism, and famine desolated the fertile
regions which were the cradle of the arts and sciences when Jericho was the ‘“‘ City of
Palm trees.”

Around the site of this historic city there is not now a single palm. The rich plain,
where once waved a sea of golden corn, is entirely deserted, save by roving Bedouins,
who camp in its fields and roam over its vast expanse in search of plunder. The ter-
races, once cultivated for the support of ateeming populace, are parched and desolate ;
the cities that crowned every eminence are in ruins; the equilibrium between the ani-
mal and vegetable kingdom is lost; and the land to-day is rich only in the history of
its former magnificence and grandeur.

The dire consequences of the disafforestation of these fertile regions in Asia, and the
lesson which the improyidence of this people should have taught succeeding genera-
tions, was entirely lost upon the rulers of Europe. It was not their love of country,
nor yet patriotic forethought for its future welfare, that saved a portion of that fair
land from a similar fate, but rather the result of their sordid selfishness and cupidity,
that proved in after years not only the salvation, but the crowning glory of their
country.

In England, Germany, and France, for instance, they delighted in the chase, and
gratified their passion for this pastime even to the extent of depopulating large tracts
of country, which were set apart as safe preserves for wild animals to be slain only by
royal hands. And lest the people, who in many instances had thus been deprived of
their freehold lands, should in any way attempt to interfere with this royal sport, they
were hedged about with the most cruel and inhuman laws that ever disgraced the pages
of a statute-book.

dt

As late asthe eleventh century we find that in England the penalty for killing a stag,
whether in the forest, on the public highway, or even on the offender’s own premises,
was the loss of an eye, and for a second offense the culprit was punished with total
blindness.

The incidental and totally unconsidered result of these stringent laws was that the
forests received a measure of protection based solely upon their value as an adjunct
to the chase, and not because there existed at that time the slightest appreciation of
their importance from any other standpoint. Thus unconsciously did they become
benefactors of their country, for while the forest sheltered their game it also equalized
the humidity of the atmosphere, created springs, controlled the flow of their streams,
and protected the moisture of the ground, so that when it was found in the sixteenth
century that these countries were well wooded, while at the same time there prevailed
a great dearth of timber for fuel and other economic purposes, a more enlightened
people found no difficulty in growing trees to supply these necessities.

It was at this period that writers and sayvants, for the first time in the world’s history,
agitated the subject of arboriculture as a measure of political economy, and we find, as
a consequence, that plantations of forest trees to a limited extent were made in Eng-
iand, while Germany and France began a system of forestry directed chiefly to the care
and protection of their remaining open forests.

A century later an increased demand for timber gave a new impulse to arboriculture,
and the publication of John Evelyn’s ‘‘ Sylva” at this time created such a taste for the
science in England that large land-owners, as well as the government, became sufti-
ciently interested to establish nurseries for forest trees, and a system of re-forestation
was begun, which has been developed, until to-day the hills that were bleak and the
wastes that were barren are shaded with forests in which the foreign trees far outnum-
ber those that are indigenous to the soil.

The landscape of Germany has been changed and beautified, by careful management
and cultivation, until the forests of that country and her forestry system are superior
to all others, and the schools devoted specially to this study have justly earned the
right to be called the alma mater's of this interesting science.

And while her two most prominent neighbors were thus alert to the importance of
the question, the French nation was neither idle nor indifferent. On the contrary,
she kept full pace with the others, and such was the harmony of sentiment between
these three countries upon this subject that with all the vicissitudes of international
warfare, changes of boundary lines, and other disturbing events they were entirely in
unison on the perpetuation of their forest lands. On that one point their interests
were in common, and were guarded with greater solicitude than is manifested in
America to-day under far more pressing circumstances.

In sharp contrast to the flourishing condition of these countries is the state of affairs
in Spain, whose rulers and people alike preferred the savage sports of the arena to the
pleasures of the chase, and, as peaceful groves and forest glens could contribute nothing
to intensify the horrors in which this country delighted, they held no place in the esti-
mation of the people; so that the forestry interests were left to take care of themselves,
with the usual deplorable results.

The kingdom of Spain was at one time the most opulent of the Powers of Europe,
but its decline dates back to the time when the destruction of its forests began; the
climate became arid ; the streams refused their life-giving flow to agriculture, and the
broad lands that once yielded an abundant harvest had to be abandoned for lesser
fields, situated nearer the sources of streams and in the mountain declivities. No
forests had been reserved, as in the other countries of Europe, and when, in later
years, they sought to remedy their great mistake by following the example of their
neighbors, in the work of reforestation, they discovered, as one writer puts it, that
while trees induce humidity, it first requires humidity to induce the growth of trees.
Confronted by this important law of Nature, they saw their well-meant efforts rewarded
with only the most meagre and discouraging results, and realized then that the lesson
taught them in the merciless school of experience had come to them too late for the
relief of their country. They had waited too long; the point of climatic equilibrium
had been passed; and it is doubtful whether even the matured experience of Germany
in this science could successfully cope with the alternating drouths and floods that now
prevail.

As another example of the calamitous results of disafforestation, I would call your
attention to the present condition of Russia—a country blessed with an immense forest
area—whose people, unrestrained by any considerations of prudence, have continued
their wasteful incursions upon their woodlands until the government, becoming alarmed
at the frequency of famines in the best districts of the empire, ordered an official in-
vestigation into the cause.

The results proved beyond all question that these disasters were entirely due to cli-
matic changes brought about by the denudation of their forest lands.

45

This report served to arouse the authorities from their apathy, and resulted in the
adoption of various protective measures, among which we find that the Ministry of
State Domains offers large premiums, by Imperial command, for planting trees and
cultivating forests on peasant lands as well as on proprietors’ estates; and thus they
hope to replace the growth of centuries with young trees.

Should these efforts fail, it requires no spirit of prophecy to foretell the dire conse-
quences threatening that great empire.

The precedents furnished by these older countries must make it clear, to every think-
ing mind, that the best interests of our country demand the immediate enactment of
laws that will insure the protection and proper administration of the entire forest area
of our public domain; and as the conservation of our national welfare is the chief
function of Congress, the lessons to be deduced from the experience of others should
be as valuable to that body in shaping the affairs of State as they are, with proper
prudence, the safest guide for the individual man of business.

Reasoning from this standpoint, we find that the nation is being robbed every year
of enormous quantities of timber, and by adding to this the amount destroyed by fire,
the total may be set down at ten millions of dollars, ten per cent. of which sum would
suffice to inaugurate a system of forestry competent not only to prevent this loss, but
to insure a forest covering to the slopes and crests of the Rocky Mountains and the
Pacific Slope, where this forest covering serves as a vast natural reservoir for the ac-
cumulated rains and snows of winter, and forms the fountain-head of all streams, and
whose value can only be measured by the agricultural product of the valleys and table-
lands below them.

The actual value of the timber, therefore, sinks into insignificance when compared
with the important function which these forests subserve in this manner, and yet man,
in his selfish greed for immediate wealth, is denuding the mountain-sides, unmindful of
the consequences, which are already manifesting themselves in the agricultural dis-
tricts by a superabundance of water early in the year, and an insufficiency during the
summer season to mature the growing crops. This was the case in some sections of
Colorado during the present year, and had it not been for an excess of unlooked-for
but opportune rains, a complete failure would have been the certain result.

As these lands are non-productive and valueless without proper irrigation, the situa-
tion has certainly reached a crisis which justifies the gravest fears, and yet in my
travels through these regions last summer I did not hear a single suggestion looking
towards reforestation, or even to the protection of the wooded slopes against further
spoliation. Instead of this, Congress is to be asked to construct and maintain a series
of artificial reservoirs to restore a proper water supply, and, considered in all its bear-
ings, I do not hesitate to pronounce this the poorest remedy that could be devised;
for, unless the advocates of this plan can also suggest means to stay the elements at
conyenient stages, they will find, as is shown by the experience of France, that these
dams and reservoirs are not only enormously expensive, but positively create even
greater dangers to human life and property than those which they are meant to remedy.

In view of these conditions, need any one ask further what must be done to main-
tain the fertility or increase the productive area in these districts? Do not science,
observation, and precedent clearly indicate the only safe and proper course to pursue ?

Let the strong arm of the Government be stretched forth in the philanthropic work
of reforestation, so that our great river-basins may be tilled in peace, freed from the
dreaded devastation of the annual flood, and the valleys of the boundless West will
flourish and blossom with the riches of the soil.

Where States are fortunate enough to be the owners of lands, the position of their
respective legislatures is relatively the same as that occupied by Congress toward the
public domain ; hence all that has been said of the duties of the latter may be applied
with equal force to the former.

The State of New York is one of these, and its 700,000 acres of forest lands have been
pillaged at will, ever since the organization of the State, until, after much agitation,
three Commissioners were appointed in 1885 for the purpose of taking charge of
these lands, and enforcing the law in regard to forest fires in every part of the State.
The result, two years later, was an absolute immunity from fire on State lands, the
complete arrest of all trespass, timber-thieving, and other encroachments, besides the
recovery of $14,000 for timber illegally cut, which amount covered nearly one-half of
the total expense incurred by the State in this movement.

This example of active interest and gratifying progress might be profitably imitated
by the great State of Texas, whose vast empire, stretching westward from the Brazos
river, is altogether treeless; whereas if but a portion of the immense tracts owned by
the State within this demesne were set apart for forest preserves and planted with
trees, their very presence would be sufficient to attract the much-needed settler, de-
velop the still latent resources of the country, and confer benefits which would make
themselves felt in every portion of the State.

46

Thus it will be seen that the problem of forestry in the United States varies accord-
ing to location. It devolves upon the people of the prairie States to plant trees; upon
those of the mountain regions to protect and manage the forests; in partially timbered
localities to preserve what forests they have left, and make them as productive as pos-
sible, while those favored with ripe original forests should see to the proper utilization
of the timber without imparing that which is the rightful legacy of generations yet to
come.

It is the duty of every State to furnish the means by which its laws for the preven-
tion of forest fires may be enforced, as the loss to the country from this cause alone
amounted to ten millions of acres of woodland during the last census year. On this
immense area the property destroyed amounted to twenty-five and one-half millions of
dollars, not including the value of embryo forests that have also been swept away,
thereby dooming the land to weeds and brambles for centuries to come before enough
mold will have accumulated for tree-growth.

The actual expense necessary for the maintenance of a proper system of protection
sinks into utter insignificance when compared with such loss as this, and therefore the
mere cost should not be a bar to the necessary State legislation on this subject.

The adoption and observance of Arbor Day is significant of the interest taken by the
several States in this matter, and as the laws now on the statute-books are at best only
tentative, and not sufficient to interest the land-owner, it is to be hoped that the same
spirit that prompts the ceremonial observance of this day may lead to more favorable
legislation for the encouragement and promotion of practical efforts in forestry. I do
not mean to argue that forest plantations on private estates actually need such assist-
ance to make them profitable, but inasmuch as they tend to modify the climate, prevent
extremes of temperature, furnish protection from violent winds, and in every other
way confer benefits in which all share alike, it is in my opinion only fair that the
work should be popularized and encouraged to a certain degree at public expense.

In view of these facts, every one who plants trees, labors to improve his forest con-
ditions, and counteracts every tendency towards deterioration, is a public benefactor ;
but there is also a mercenary side to this question which will probably succeed much
better as a popular incentive than mere suggestions of philanthropy or sentiment.
If every land-owner could be made to realize the fact that our forests yield a revenue
to the country immensely greater than the combined wealth of all our mines, surpass-
ing even the value of our great corn crop by nearly 200 millions of dollars, and above
all that this enormous timber-harvest, which for the last census year amounted to 700
millions, involved a sacrifice of forest wealth, chargeable to carelessness, to nearly
one-half as much more, it would be a powerful incentive to reform; and the improyi-
dent greed which, for want of a better market, destroys a two-dollar tree to get a 35
cent railroad tie, would become a thing of the past.

To demonstrate the financial injury that is inflicted upon the present generation by
direct waste of material, and the wrong that is being done to posterity by the destruc-
tion of young growths and the extinction of the germs of future forests by domestic
animals, should be one of the first duties of every Forestry Association.

Of course, no one wishes to see the country relapse into a wilderness, nor to cireum-
scribe or interfere in any way with the proper use of the forest product; but it is
incumbent upon every one to practise economy in cutting; to utilize all that is cut;
to make the material last as long as possible in its varied uses; and above all, to
maintain the equilibrium of supply by planting young trees and fostering the young
growths, to replace in due time what is being taken away.

In treating upon this subject on a former occasion, I demonstrated that systematic
cultivation of useful forest trees could be made profitable, by figures which were
based upon the extremes of maturity. I now propose to illustrate that an unlimited
amount of such forest products may be annually marketed, to supply a staple demand
in my own line of business, at a very fair profit, in less than 40 years from date of planting.

I am aware that scientists refrain from these calculations for ‘‘lack of precedent,”
but I take the ground that, in Ilinois at least, trees will grow if half cared for. An
experience of nearly a quarter of a century in handling lumber teaches me that from
thirty to forty years will produce the required growth under the most ordinary condi-
tions, and, as the values employed in the following estimates will be just what is being
paid for such material in Chicago to-day, it follows that my conclusions must neces-
sarily be as far removed from empty theorizing as any business calculation involving a
like number of factors.

In the first place, the very best timber yet discovered for wagon hubs is the much-
abused Bois d’Are or Osage Orange, which possesses the peculiarity of not shrinking
or checking to any appreciable degree while undergoing the process of seasoning. The
timber is firm, elastic, and very durable, but, as it is almost unobtainable from natural
sources, its use is necessarily limited.

That it can be grown to trees of ample dimensions was seen this year in the factory

47

of Schuttler & Hotz, Chicago, where quite a quantity of farm-wagon hubs were made
from this timber, which had grown without cultivation to a sufficient size for this pur-
pose on Illinois prairie soil in twenty-two years from the seed.

To illustrate what profits would accrue to the owner of a plantation of this valuable
timber, let each acre represent a product of only 150 trees, which will readily yield
450 sets of hub-blocks, worth seventy-five cents each; giving us a total of $337.50 as
the value of this portion of the crop, while the residue may be made to pay all ex-
penses of cutting and marketing by utilizing it for paving material. For this purpose
it is pre-eminently suited, since it is as impervious to decay as white cedar, while far
surpassing the latter in hardness and durability. Pavements of this wood have been
practically tested in the city of Dallas, Texas, where several years of hard service, un-
der the heaviest traffic of the main streets, scarcely made an impression upon its sur-
face, and the blocks were, to all appearances, as sound as when first put down.

A Bois d’Arc plantation, thus utilized, may therefore be safely credited with an an-
nual increase averaging at least $8.44 per acre, while in Texas and other portions of
the South, where it is indigenous, it would easily exceed the above figures when put to
the test of actual practice.

But while the Osage Orange has thus proven its right to rank with the most useful
of our timber trees, there are other varieties which will show equally encouraging re-
sults when cultivated for the purpose of meeting the urgent demands from the manu-
facturing world.

Thus, in districts further north, a systematic cultivation of the white oak, for the
production of what are technically known as ‘‘ second-growth ” spokes, would not only
prove a valuable source of profit, but would tend to relieve another great and growing
necessity in my line of business, as this material is becoming scarcer every season, be-
cause of the immense quantities that are cut, not only for home consumption, but for
export to foreign countries. It is a fact that American forests furnish the bulk of
the spoke-material used in European vehicles, and notwithstanding this additional
drain upon our resources, the trees that cowld furnish such material are cut for railroad
ties before they are large enough to be utilized for spokes. The consequence is that
the billets that will work to the regulation size (1x3 in. x28 in. long) are now worth in
the Chicago market $20.00 per 1,000, and unless something is speedily done to check
this growing scarcity one of the "most important branches of the wagon-maker’s busi
ness is doomed to suffer irreparable damage.

Whether the oak can be cultivated with profit for this and kindred purposes I will
leave you to judge from the following estimates, which are based on figures sufficiently
conservative to be safely relied upon. A forty years’ growth of white oak will readily
produce material enough for 170 sets of spoke-timber per acre, worth $1.14 per set,
and hubs to the value of $25.00 more, making a total of $216.80; but the more proper
method of management would be to cut out only every alternate tree at the end of
forty years and let the remainder stand as forest until fully matured at eighty. Allow-
ing two trees for every thousand feet of lumber, at only $16.00 per 1,000, the results
would net us $109.40 from the first instalment, and not less than $600.00 from the
later crop, making an average of $8.87 annual increase per acre, since the residue will
pay the expenses of cutting and marketing. But, encouraging as these figures are, it
should be bornein mind that the actual price of such material as the above is $25.00 per
thousand in Chicago to-day, and that, judging from present indications, it will be more
likely to bring three times that price eighty years hence.

Another valuable tree, belonging exclusively to America, is fast following the black
walnut on the inevitable road to extinction, and yet there is none whose product, if
cultivated, might be more quickly marketed than the hickory. Wherever special elas-
ticity with strength is required, as in wagon axles, carriage-spokes, hammer, pick, and
tool-handles, this timber is almost indispensable, and in the vast diversity of its uses
is worked up at all stages of its growth, so that the product of every periodical thin-
ning out of such a plantation is immediately available in one shape or another at good
prices. From ordinary hoop-poles up, so varied are the uses to which it is put that it
is impossible to estimate the value of the periodical harvests which would precede the
final or matured crop, while the latter, in its turn, would at least be equal to that of
the two species which I have already estimated.

It is hardly necessary, however, to enter further into details respecting the varieties
of other trees equally necessary to the world of industry which might be cultivated
with similarly profitable results. Even the ash, that ‘‘unsociable tree,” which is never
found in groves of its kind, and whose profitable cultivation would probably depend
upon its being scattered at intervals throughout plantations of other kinds, is of such
pregnant value to the manufacturing ixdustries of this country that its extinction here
would be most keenly felt. It is another of those woods which, while indispensable
for certain specific uses in which no other wood can well take its place, is also an orna-
mental material of such high value for furniture and interior decoration that it is cut
down at all periods of its growth.

48

In the course of this Congress, great stress has been laid upon the prospects for an
early extinction of our forests, and yet how little does the general public realize the
imminence of the catastrophe which so soon will culminate in the white pine regions of
the Northwest. Under the terrific onslaughts of the concentrated forces of modern
machinery, the stately evergreen is rapidly disappearing, and the worst feature of this
slaughter is that the white pine, after such wholesale destruction, never renews its kind,
and never recovers the lost ground; but, like the aborigine, seems to vanish before the
approach of civilization.

Ever since the settlement of the Lake region, the vast pine forests of Michigan and
Wisconsin have been drawn upon with unrestrained hand, and have attracted a con-
centration of capitalized interests which has apparently exerted all its efforts to their
utter extinction within the shortest possible time. No one will deny the right of man-
kind toa proper use of the forest product, but those who have taken it upon themselves
to supply this demand have much to answer for in the enormous waste of material
which attends their methods. It is estimated that fully one-third of each year’s cut is
a total loss through reckless and inexcusable waste, which might have been prevented
by a conservative system of forestry as practised in Europe, and, by prolonging the
timber supply, would at least have postponed the inevitable day of its total extinction.

The principal headquarters of the white-pine lumber trade of the Northwest are at
Chicago; and were I to illustrate the situation there to-day by the parable of the goose
and the golden eggs, it would be doing only justice, though not very flattering, to the
otherwise keen and enlightened business men composing the great Northwestern Lum-
bermen’s Association of that city.

It isnot so very long ago that the vast extent of wilderness from which they were
drawing untold wealth, and which, like the coal beds and gas-wells of Pennsylvania,
had hitherto been an unknown quantity, suddenly became measurable ; and at a recent
meeting of lumbermen in Chicago the dilemma of the day presented itself in all its
menacing proximity. It wes estimated that while in 1840 there were, in the State of
Michigan alone, 150 billions of feet of pine timber, there is not now much over 15
billions, or enough for two years’ cut, were it all taken out at the present rate. In
Wisconsin the situation is relatively the same, except that its present greatest area of
primeval forest is subjected toa much swifter depletion, because of the greater demand
and the increased modern facilities for cutting.

It was therefore conceded that the time was not far distant when their operations
must be transferred to the South, where, in anticipation of such a necessity, large
tracts of forest lands had already been acquired for the purpose within the past few
years. This fact alone reveals the impoverished condition of the Northern lumber dis-
tricts more forcibly than pages of statistics could do it, and while such a step may pro-
long the business for a time, the final results to the people of all sections will be none
the less disastrous, unless the present methods of operation are very radically improved.
Under our modern system of lumbering, with its inordiuate and inexcusable waste of
valuable material, gigantic in its destructive efficiency and urged on by the ever increas-
ing demand for the product, the forests of the South will vanish with frightful speed
before these deadly inroads, and the Jand will soon be doomed to suffer the penalties
with which outraged nature is already threatening the North.

It is gratifying to know, however, that the thoughtful and intelligent people of our
country are awakening to the urgency of the questions in behalf of which this Con-
gress is here assembled ; to know that there is hardly a State but what has an Associa-
tion of some kind within its borders advocating the cause of forestry; that much en-
couragement may be expected from individual efforts, and that, notwithstanding the
tremendous drains upon our forest resources, they are for the present still capable of
yielding a large material product, until an effective system of redemption can be
brought into operation. The opportunities of the hour must not be permitted to pass
us by; for what the 17th century was to European forestry the 19th is to that of the
present day with us, and if we are to profit by the warning example of Spain, it will
not do to neglect this duty until our timber area shall be exhausted beyond the power
of human intervention to recover it. It is also satisfactory and encouraging to find
that practical demonstrations of the possibilities of timber cultivation are beginning
to manifest themselves, and that the voice of the press is everywhere heard in behalf
of the movement which so vitally concerns our country’s welfare.

A most remarkable example of practical results was exhibited at the Kansas City Ex-
position a few months ago, in the shape of a substantial farm wagon, complete in every
detail, constructed by the well-known Peter Schuttler wagon factory at Chicago, from
twenty kinds of wood raised from the seed on the prairie farm of A. R. Whitney, at
Franklin Grove, Illinois, in less than forty years.

This unique display not only reflects great credit upon the exhibitors for their evi-
dent interest in the cause of forestry, and for expressing it in so practical a form, but,
in point of fact, it stands unparalleled as an example of the possibilities of forest cultiva-

49

tion in this country. Being the first illustration of the kind ever seen on this Conti-
nent, it not only awakened great enthusiasm among all friends of arboriculture, but
called forth the warmest praises from the newspaper press of the Western States,
which, as a rule, had already displayed more or less interest in the question of for-
estry, and, therefore, welcomed it as a valuable demonstration of the cause which they
had been advocating, one journal in Kansas City culminating its efforts by an offer of
premiums to the amount of $550 in cash as a stimulus to tree planting in Kansas.

The value of this remarkable piece of work, judged by its direct results, can hardly
be overestimated, since it enlisted the powerful assistance of the press, aroused public
attention, and, above all, appealed so directly to the popular and practical side of the
question as to deserve honorable mention.

In view of such disinterested works as this, which are the index of progress in our
cause, and which are worthy of the emulation and encouragement of all good citizens,
it should not be charged that the Russian people’s treatment of their forests finds a
parallel in America, for such is far from being the case. It would, indeed, be a sur-
prising anomaly if the superior intelligence of our land-owners, in whose ranks are
many of our profoundest thinkers and ablest legislators, and whose broad acres were
acquired, as a rule, by their own industry and thrift, should not have advanced on this
point beyond the Tartar peasant or the emancipated serf, or that it should first require
a Russian famine to awaken this government of the people to the vital importance of
the forestry question to our national welfare.

Its laws are simply the expression of the will of the community, promulgated for
their own welfare, and every enactment, to be of practical service, must have behind
it the popular intelligence which demands its enforcement. Asa stream is never higher
than its source, so every government is merely a type or symbol of the people from
which it has sprung ; and all legislative action has its roots in some urgent need of the
hour. To awaken proper interest among those from whom the first impulse must come
is the purpose of our Congress of Forestry here to-day, since no one can judge better
of the necessities of the case than those whose vocations and interests are directly
affected by its present conditions.

On the other hand, we have before us the task of correcting the erroneous though
popular belief in the inexhaustible resources of our country, since it begets that dan-
gerous indifference which has already cost us the best portion of our forest wealth. It
is the wonder and surprise of the Old World that our country, after supplying its sixty
millions of people with profuse abundance, can regularly show a surplus of 10 per cent.
of the value of all its immense product. This country is now justly accounted rich,
but its wealth has been accumulating ever since the beginning of American history, and
duty requires that we shall protect the sources of this prosperity to be handed down
unimpaired to future generations. Yet with all our profusion, we are just beginning
to learn that our resources are not to be considered inexhaustible, and that after all no
country can have much more than its proper proportion of the world’s wealth. We
are never more than a few years removed from starvation, and an Egyptian famine
would not have to run its seven years’ course before we would be thrown upon the
charity of foreign nations.

Let us now review the various examples of national calamity and progress, past and
present, which I have cited, and let us decide whether, in the light of all this experi-
ence, we are justified in further ignoring or even temporizing with the questions at
issue. Back in the early dawn of history we find the luxuriant land, where once stood
the cradle of the human race, gradually being robbed of its rich groves and forests,
shorn of its vine and fig tree, and stripped of the olive and the palm, while to-day its
ruined temples and crumbling columns almost buried from sight beneath the sands of
the desert are all that remain to attest its ancient glory. And we find, in later years,
that the historic kingdom of Spain, upon whose realms once ‘‘ the sun never set,” and
whose fertile fields formed the granary of ancient Rome, where learning, art, and
chivalry flourished in harmony with industry and commerce, is to-day reduced to com-
parative penury through the culpable avarice of man.

We see the vast Empire of Russia, almost at the eleventh hour, putting forth spas-
modic efforts to regain its forestal equilibrium, to save itself from the impending doom
to which it has just awakened ; and as an offset to all these, we have the prudent ex-
amples of the German, French, and English nations, whose ‘‘ eternal vigilance’ in the
protection and cultivation of their forests is the price of their present prosperity, and
who haye been wise enough to profit by the experience of others. Can the great Re-
public of America, at this critical stage of its imperilled forestal conditions, afford to
ignore these examples any longer? Every thoughtful citizen will admit that only the
blindest folly could excuse further inaction; the time has come for active work, and
our first steps should be the careful husbanding of our remaining timber resources,
and immediate legislation to that end. Every friend of forestry should devote his
personal efforts towards bringing this about, and what little I can do in the cause will

50

be to demonstrate to the people that nothing need be sacrificed by individual efforts
in the planting and cultivation of trees, but that, on the contrary, the rewards of Na-
ture for any such investment are far more certain than in the ordinary operations of
agriculture, and that the grand work of restoring the noblest growth of the vegetable
kingdom will surely earn the blessings of generations still to come.

FOREST FIRES IN NORTHERN CANADA.
BY ROBERT BELL, OTTAWA, CANADA,
Assistant Director Geological Survey.

Northward of the deciduous and mixed forests of Southern Canada a vast belt of
conifers, about seven hundred miles in breadth, stretches for four thousand miles from
the eastern coast of Labrador to the Rocky Mountains, and continues beyond them into
Alaska. The northern zone of this belt consists of black and white spruce and tama-
rac, but as we go south these become mixed with Banksian pine, balsam fir, and, in
the east, with white cedar, and, finally, with red and white pine. Excepting near the
verge of the forest, there is also a greater or less mixture of aspen, rough-barked pop-
lar, white birch, and the various northern willows, but in a general way this great belt
may be described as a coniferous forest.

Notwithstanding its immense extent, it may be said that fire has run through every
part of it at one period or another. Forests of this kind are peculiarly liable to de-
struction by fire.

The trees are comparatively small, and when they do not stand closely together their
branches grow all the way down to the ground. ‘The open spaces, no matter how
rocky, are covered by reindeer mosses, which, in the summer time, are as dry and inflam-
mable as tinder, while the deep carpeting of the yellow mosses among the trees them-
selves is equally dry and helps to give body to the flames.

The Indian hunter or wild Indian of the North, knowing how destructive forest fires
are to the animals on which he depends for food and fur, takes all possible care to pre-
vent them, yet if one ascends a high hill in any part of these regions so as to obtain
an extensive view of the country he will find the normal condition of the woods to be
“patchy,” or to consist of areas of second growths of various ages mixed with others
of older timber. The latter may have attained to the full growth and yet not repre-
sent the original forest, as it has probably sprung up on ground which had been
burnt over at a time more remote than would represent the life of any of the trees
standing upon it. ‘The writer has crossed the entire breadth of our northern forests
in many parts and has found the above condition to prevail everywhere.

Knowing the care which the Indians have always exercised, and the fact that the
country has not been invaded by white men, the question arises, What has caused
these fires which have in turn swept over every part of this enormous country, and not
only once, but again and again, since a very early period? My answer is that the con-
ditions which we find in our Northern woods could not otherwise have been attained.
These fires have had an effect on the formation of the soil, on the rotation of crops of
trees, so necessary to their healthy condition, and on the dispersion of seeds.

We have both direct proof, and also the evidence of the trees themselves, that forest
fires have originated without human agency, and that they have been going on ever
since the present species of trees existed, if, indeed, they have not played a part in
providing some of their specific characters. Lightning has been the commonest cause
of these fires, although in some cases they may have originated from the spontaneous
combustion due to the decomposition of pyrites, which is known to have set fire to
beds of lignite in the Sashkatchewan region.

In the Northern States and the inhabited parts of Canada it is not uncommon for
lightning to strike barns and houses and to set them on fire in the hot months of sum-
mer. ‘This is the season when our Northern forests are dry and ready to burn, and we
should naturally expect similar accidents to occur among them with at least equal fre-
quency, in proportion to area. Examples have been observed in this region where the
fire which has destroyed a large area has been traced back to a tree which had been
struck by lightning. With an experience of over thirty summers spent in these woods,
I only once actually witnessed a case of this kind. The lightning on this occasion was
plainly seen to strike the brink of a wooded bluff near Red Rock, on Lake Superior,
and to set it on fire. Owing to the very small number of human beings in these re-
gions, the chances of these occurrences being witnessed are very few as compared
with civilized regions ; yet the Indians tell me that they frequently happen. On sev-
eral occasions I have found forest fires (still of limited extent) burning in totally unin-
habited regions and where it was certain that no travellers could have passed for a long
time before these fires begun. Among examples of this phenomenon which could be

51

named two were observed on branches of the Albany, one on the Attawapishkat, to
the north of it, and one on the Sturgeon river, near Lake Nipissing.

Referring to the evidence afforded by the trees themselves that forest fires are natu-
ral phenomena, I shall mention the case of the Banksian pine. The cones of this tree
are hard and remain closed as long as the tree lives. The older ones become weath-
ered and covered with lichens, often indicating great age, still adhering firmly to the
branch. The tree may fall down and rot and the cones drop from the decayed branches,
yet they will not open. But should the trees become scorched by a forest fire, they
will immediately gape open and the healthy seeds will become scattered far and wide
by the wind.

It sometimes happens that a second fire follows a previous one after the lapse of a
few years. The first conflagration kills the trees and consumes all the foliage and
twigs, but leaves the charred trunks and branches standing. It also burns off the moss
and much of the loamy soil. In time the branches fall off, the smaller roots become
rotten, and a gale of wind some day levels all the trunks to the ground. This is called
a ‘‘fire-fall,” and the prostrate trees cover the ground so completely that it is very
difficult for the explorer to force his way under or overthem. The second growth may
have sprung up before it happened or it may begin to push its way through the tangled
mass of fallen trees, rendering it almost impenetrable. Should another fire not occur,
the second growth, consisting of deciduous trees, will attain its full size, and the fallen
conifers gradually rot and disappear. But should a second fire occur during some dry
summer, everything is swept away, including the upturned dried roots, which burn even
more fiercely than the trunks and branches. The young second growth is entirely de-
stroyed, and even the loamy part of the soil which may have escaped the first fire, in-
cluding all seeds which may not yet have germinated. Only the scanty inorganic
portion remains, heavily charged with the ashes of the wood and the loam. It is on
ground thus prepared that groves of Banksian pine spring up and flourish. The seeds
must have been scattered upon it after the second fire, which had so completely de-
stroyed everything organic. The ground thus left remains almost bare for a few years,
but at last it becomes pretty well occupied by the young pines of different ages as if
the sowing process were a gradual one. A few spruces and other trees also spring up.
The reason why the Banksian pines are the first to occupy these lifeless areas may be
due to the comparative lightness of their seeds and their extent of wing, enabling them
to be carried greater distance in the wind or to their finding the excess of potash con-
genial to their development. They grow quickly, and in twenty years have attained a
height of thirty feet and upwards, while some of their trunks are as thick asa man’s
thigh. By this time their branches bear a good crop of fresh-looking cones. I have
never noticed a case where the seeds of this species germinated within a buried cone, as
often happens with the spruce, balsam, &c., resulting in tufts of young seedlings, and
all my observations go to show that fire is a necessary condition for the diffusion and
maintenance of this tree in the manner above described. The same agency no doubt
aids in scattering the seeds of other conifers. It is a well known fact that after a fire
has destroyed a coniferous forest the growth which succeeds usually consists principally
of deciduous trees. In the country under consideration these are aspen and rough-
barked poplars, white birch, pigeon cherry, and willows.

After the vegetable loam has been burnt out by a forest fire, a long time must elapse
before the soil regains an equal degree of fertility through the falling of leaves and
the decay of generations of the small trees which follow, supposing that no new fire
occurs to destroy again the accumulated mold and throw everything back to the
sterile condition following the original double fire. In the end an increased fertility
is probably reached, as the fires and the turning up of the root-bases of the trees all
tend to disintegrate the rocky surface.

The length of time which has elapsed since a forest fire cannot be accurately ascer-
tained, even if we could determine correctly the age of the second-growth timber, as
the new crop does not always start up immediately after the fire. In cases where the dates
of such fires are known they are found to be several years further back than would be
supposed if we judged solely by the new timber. The following is the course of events
after a fire has run through a tract of the full-grown northern coniferous forest, the
fires always occurring during the driest part of the summer: In the next spring weeds
and bushes (raspberry, huckleberry, red elder, &c.) begin to spring up and partly oc-
cupy the blackened ground. These increase for two or three years, and as they die
out are gradually replaced by the poplars, white birch, pigeon cherry, willows, &c.,
with a few conifers. The willows and pigeon cherry are short lived. The poplars at-
tain their full size and decay in about seventy years, and the white birch shows signs
of old age in less than one hundred years. In the meantime the proportion of conifers
is constantly increasing from new individuals springing up, so that by the time the
deciduous trees have died out the ground has become completely occupied by the for-
mer. The shade afforded by the latter causes the trunks of the spruces, tamaracs, &c.,

52

to grow tall and straight. It may be here remarked that in the northern regions re-
ferred to the tamarac grows everywhere on the dry ground, along with the spruces,
poplars, &c.

From a very extensive personal knowledge of the condition of the forests of Northern
Canada, Iam able to state that fires haye become more and more frequent as we
approach the present time. The areas of the ‘‘brulés” of different dates may be
said to be greater in proportion to their recentness. Various causes may be assigned
for this increasing frequency of forest fires. The starting of a fire by the Indians of
more than a hundred years ago, or before the introduction of modern methods, must
have been a somewhat difficult matter. They probably obtained sparks by striking
together pieces of iron pyrites as the Eskimos do at the present day, or ignited dry
pounded woody fibre by means of wooden friction machines worked by a bow and string ;
and occasionally they may have availed themselves of fires originated by lightning.

The most primitive Indian families I have met with paid great attention to keeping
alive the fire they possessed, and carried it on their travels in old kettles, fed at frequent
intervals by little dry sticks. The means of obtaining fire have been rendered much
easier by the introduction of steel to be used with flint and punk, and of gunpowder by
which to ignite rags, &c., in their flint-lock guns, but above all by lucifer matches.
The Indian, or for that matter the white man, who is fortunate enough to possess a
stock of matches, when in the woods, very often avails himself of this easy means to
make a smudge to keep off the mosquitoes, to light his pipe, dropping the burning
match, or to make a little fire in order to boil his kettle and refresh himself with a hot
drink. The number of fire-setting travellers has greatly increased in comparatively
recent times. These include fur traders, missionaries, surveyors, explorers, prospectors,
&e. and, nearer to civilization, railway builders, common-road makers, lumbermen,
bush-rangers, and settlers.

A fire may be set at a time of the year when it will not run, butit is astonishing how
long it will smolder in the deep moss and under logs and roots, until after weeks, or
even months, a dry time comes and a favoring gale of wind will fan it into activity and
cause it to burn up a whole country side. The heaviest rains and the suows of a whole
winter sometimes fail to extinguish or smother these smoldering fires.

In the course of my travels, during the last twenty summers, in the country be-
tween the great lakes of the St. Lawrence and James’ Bay, and between the Winnipeg
basin and Hudson’s Bay, forest fires were raging in some part of the area traversed each
year, and indeed they may be said to be almost chronic. In all directions tracts of
greater or less extent are burnt every year. We would frequently travel for long dis-
tances on rivers and chains of lakes along whose banks and on the hills and level lands
beyond them, as far as the eye could reach, nothing could be seen but the naked and
blackened trees left by the fires of the same or previous season; or it might be the
equally dreary gray or bleached and shining trunks remaining from the fires of previ-
ous years, and from which all the bark had dropped off. Even many miles away from
one of these fires the smoke would be so dense as to completely hide the shore and
islands of the lakes we were passing through, so that we were obliged, as it were, to
feel our way along. On these occasions it became impossible to carry on surveying
operations, which had to be either abandoned or left for a future opportunity. The
sun in the cloudless sky above would appear only asa dull red ball; burnt leaves and
thin films of ashes would settle slowly to the earth like large flakes of snow, and the
thick smoky air, after a time, became unpleasant for respiration and depressing to the
spirits. This state of things might continue for days, but in the course of a few hours,
a change in the wind, especially if followed by rain, might clear the atmosphere and
we would be able, for the first time, to view the country into which we had penetrated
blindfold.

Should one of these fires occur early enough in the summer, the newly killed trees
are quickly attacked by the boring beetles, but if late in the season, the borers opera-
tions are mostly postponed till the next year. These insects, finding such constant
and almost unlimited feeding grounds, swarm in the ‘‘ brulés” of the great coniferous
forests of the North, and here, in a still evening, the creaking noise of the millions
of their larve may be heard for considerable distances in all directions.

Taking the whole of the great region last referred to, it is probably not too high an
estimate to place the recently burnt portions at one-third of the entire area and the
portions covered by small second growths at another third, leaving only one-third as
original forest and large second growth. When we consider the highly inflammable
nature of these forests in summer and the constant danger to which they are then ex-
posed, it is a wonder that even this proportion has escaped the flames. It would be in-
teresting and useful to show on a map the recently burnt areas and those occupied by
the second growth of different ages, each to include, say, those of every twenty years,
and I think I have the necessary data to enable me to do a large part of this work with
sufficient accuracy for practical purposes.

53

The modern Indians, even in these northern wildernesses, have become every year
more and more dependent upon the white man, and they rely less upon the resources
of the country for the means of making a constant living than did their forefathers,
who appear to have been a more thoughtful and independent class of men. In the
course of the extensive travels in the North above referred to, I have taken every op-
portunity as a Government officer to warn the natives to be more careful about allow-
ing the woods to catch fire, and on revisiting certain districts, after a few years, I have
found that my advice had been followed, and that forest fires had not been nearly so
common as previously. One of the reasons for the growing frequency of forest fires
is that the Indians travel more than they did formerly (and thus make more fires than
when they were accustomed to stay longer in one place), along with the fact that they
are less careful to extinguish them when they are not on or near their own hunting
grounds. It gives them some trouble to put out a fire completely when they leave a
camp, or where they may have stopped to cook a meal or gum their canoe by the way,
and an Indian will seldom do anything except by necessity. In the course of my own
journeys I often hire Indians to travel with me only for limited distances, sending them
back when I find fresh ones to take their places. In this way a considerable number gen-
erally come under my influence in the course of aseason. Ialwaystake great pains to make
these men extinguish all our fires, and instruct them to keep up the practice, even in
their own interest, after they leave me. The fires for cooking breakfast or dinner are
only allowed to be kindled on bare rocks or on the beach, where there is little danger
of their spreading, and those which we are obliged to make in the woods for our camp
at night are always carefully dug out and drenched with water and the moss all around
saturated before leaving. On account of the fire burrowing under the dry moss, it is
seldom completely extinguished by merely throwing a few kettlesful of water upon the
brands. It requires to be dug out with sharp sticks, otherwise it will go on smolder-
ing until a favorable opportunity allows it to burst into flame. As an additional pre-
caution, I camp as often as possible upon small islands. In spite of all this care my
party was once the unwitting cause of burning the woods on an island in the Nelson
river. We had made our mid-day fire on a wide surface of sloping rock near the edge
of the river and a considerable distance from the woods, and afterwards threw the
brands into the water, as usual, and dashed some ketitlesful all over the place where
the fire had been. But on our return, two or three weeks afterwards, we found that a
spark must have fallen unnoticed into the dry moss and loam of a long narrow crack
in the rock, which ran up to the edge of the woods, for we saw that the fire had fol-
lowed this, like a train of gunpowder, and that on reaching the bush the wind had
fanned it into flame. Rotten coniferous wood, when thoroughly dry and broken up,
or pulverized, is particularly tenacious of fire, and it appears to seize eagerly on every
spark that falls amongstit. It requires to be thoroughly blended with water before
one can be certain that even some floating piece may not be alight in its centre.

Let us try to picture the conditions under which the great forest fires of Northern
Canada take place. A whole country-side, of practically unlimited extent, is densely
clothed with conifers, mostly spruces, balsam, tamarac, and Banksian pine. The trees
are crowded so closely together that their branches touch or intermingle. The
ground is deeply covered with dry moss. After prolonged hot weather and drouth the
moisture becomes thoroughly dried out of the gummy leaves and branches, leaving
the resin and turpentine ready for ignition. All the conditions are now present, and
only await a spark of fire to give rise to one of the wildest scenes of destruction of
which the world is capable. When the fire has once started, the pitchy trees burn rap-
idly; the flames rush through their tops and high above them with a roaring noise.
Should the atmosphere be calm, the ascending heat soon causes the air to flow in, and
after a time the wind acquires great velocity. An irresistible front of flame is soon
developed, and it sweeps forward, devouring the forest before it like the dry grass in
a running prairie fire, which this resembles, but on a gigantic scale. The irregular
line of fire has a height of a hundred feet or more above the trees, or two hundred
from the ground. Great sheets of flame appear to disconnect themselves from the
fiery torrent and leap upward and explode, or dart forward, bridging over open spaces,
such as lakes and rivers, and starting the fire afresh in advance of the main column, as
if impatient of the slower progress which it is making. These immense shooting flames
are probably due to the large quantities of inflammable gas evolved from the heated
tree tops just in advance of actual combustion, and they help to account for the almost
incredible speed of some of the larger forest fires, one of which was known to run about
130 miles in twelve hours, or upwards of ten miles an hour.

The wild animals appear to understand the significance of the roaring noise and the
clouds of smoke in the sky in advance of these conflagrations and far ahead of the
actual flames; the terrified deer, hears, wolves, and lynxes may be seen fleeing for their
lives, followed by multitudes of the small fur-bearing animals, hares, &c., all of which
are, however, soon overtaken and destroyed. Should the larger creatures be so fortu-

5

54

nate as to reach a lake or river in time, they may escape along with the beavers, musk-
rats, and otters, which seldom stray far from the water; but it not infrequently bap-
pens that bears and other animals, which have been roasted in these fires, are found
and eaten by the Indians after they have passed over. ‘The birds flutter up in confu-
sion in advance of the wall of fire and appear to drop back into the flames. Human
beings sometimes perish in these catastrophes, as happened to a number during the
surveys for the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Should the smoke be carried by the wind in such a direction that one of these fires
may be witnessed at night, the scene is one of the grandest which it is possible to
imagine, and may be compared to the burning of a great city with a line of fire ex-
tending far out of sight. The feeling of distant solitude, combined with the view of
such wide-spread destruction, gives the mind an impression of weird grandeur which
can scarcely be conceived under any other circumstances.

In the more southern districts of Canada, where the timber consists largely of white
and red pine, the character of the forest fires is somewhat different, being less rapid
and not so complete in its effects. This is owing to the more open nature of both the
timber and its foliage, the trees growing further apart and having almost naked trunks,
and also to the circumstance that they are generally mixed with deciduons trees, all of
which prevent the fire from acquiring such a strong body as in the coniferous thickets
of the north. Still, fires are sometimes moderately extensive in the pine woods and de-
stroy large quantities of these more valuable timber trees.

I do not propose to go into the question of how far, if at all, these great forest fires affect
the rain-fall in our northern districts. Only accurate observations on the ground and
extending over a long period of years could determine the matter satisfactorily. It is
worthy of remark, however, that around most of the lakes ancient water-marks may be
seen on the rocks high above any which have been reached for a great length of time,
as proved by the growths of lichens. But it is possible that this may be due to per-
manent lowerings of these lakes by the gradual deepening of their outlets.

Let us now proceed to make some kind of calculation of the quantity of available
fuel which is destroyed in a given area by a northern forest fire, apart from any further
value which the coniferous trees of the north may have as timber for local purposes or
for export. An acre of the old or original forest, of the character already described, or
of the full-size second growth, would produce on an average twenty to thirty cords of
good wood in addition to the branches and roots, as compared with fifty or sixty cords
which might be obtained from an acre of heavy hard-wood bush. Taking into account
both the older and the younger second growths of these regions the average might not
produce more than at the rate of ten to fifteen cords per acre. Still, at the low estimate
of fifteen cords for the average of the old timber and second growths, each square mile
(640 acres) would yield 9,600 cords. If we now take a comparatively small portion
of our vast northern coniferous forest, say an area the size of Great Britain, or 89,000
square miles, it may safely be said to bear 854,400,000 cords of good wood. The
population of all Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific is about five millions, the
greater number of whom live in the milder parts; but supposing that an average of
twenty cords of this fuei, per family, would be required for a year’s consumption and
that there are one million families, we have here sufficient fuel for all domestic purposes
for a period of upwards of forty-two years, or tilla new crop, affording an equal
quantity, could be grown; so that if properly protected from fire, this limited area is
capable of supplying a population of five millions of people with abundance of fuel to
warm their houses and cook their food for all time. A much smaller area must neces-
sarily have served all the wants of the more numerous British people themselves, both
for fuel and other purposes, before they discovered the use of mineral coal, as a large
proportion of the island was either cultivated, or under forests which were never cut
down for fuel; and again, open or rocky country, like much of Scotland and Wales,
must also be taken into account. Our northern forest-belt is more than thirty times
as extensive as Great Britain, and it is probable that, at the rate of destruction which
has been going on in recent years, more than a thirtieth part of it, or an area equal to
England, Scotland, and Wales, is burnt off annually; or, in other words, we are losing
every year as much fuel as would supply the domestic wants of the whole Dominion
for nearly half a century. ;

Can anything be done to prevent or lessen this terrible waste ? One would naturally
suppose that this question would be looked upon as of the tirst importance by the peo-
ple of Canada, as a similar one is regarded in Scandinavia, more especially when we
consider that almost the whole of this enormous area is destitute of coal or lignite, and
that its greatest industry, if it is ever to be populated at all, will be the mining and re-
duction of metals, in both of which operations much wood is required, besides what
may be wanted for domestic and other purposes. Yet our people never appear to give
the matter a thought, and indeed the subject is seldom even mentioned. Laws against
the wilful or negligent starting of fires in the woods have been placed on the statute-

55

books of the organized provinces, in which some kinds of timber have a present com-
mercial value, but these ordinances have practically little effect, as no adequate pro-
vision is made for their enforcement. Besides the laws themselves, we require the
necessary machinery to carry them out. What is wanted is a proper number of paid
officers or forest guardians, each with a staff of men, whose duty it would be to look
after the timber districts, whether belonging to the Crown or leased as limits to the
lumbermen. These officers and their men should have power to arrest or lay informa-
tion against persons suspected or known to have wilfully or by their negligence set fire
to the woods. As matters now stand, many guilty persons are allowed to escape through
the reluctance or fear which disinterested or private individuals may have in regard to
informing against them. It is not to be expected that a private citizen will voluntarily
assume the odium, trouble, expense, and loss of time necessary to do what is as much
the duty of every other member of the community for the general good of the country.
The work would not be so unpleasant in the hands of a paid government officer clothed
with ample authority. Lumbermen are often blackmailed by bad characters whom
they have been obliged to dismiss from their service and whose movements they can-
not always watch, but who they know would be very apt to set fire to their limits for
the sake of revenge. ‘he forest guardians should keep an eye not only on such per-
sons, but even on careless Indians, explorers, and bush-travellers generally. These
officers, and also the head men of all the lumbering establishments in the woods, should
be empowered to call out every man within reach to fight forest fires when they break
out. Our fish and game laws are also, toa great extent, a dead letter from a similar
want of executive force, and it would probably be found advantageous also to utilize
the services of the forest guardians in assisting to carry them into effect.

In Scandinavia, where the preservation of the forests is regarded as of vital impor-
tance, the laws against setting them on fire are very severe. Any person who may
have caused a forest fire, whether by ‘‘ accident” or otherwise (no accidents being
recognized in connection with this matter), is held liable for all he is worth toward
making good the damage, and he is imprisoned besides. Under these circumstances
forest fires are very rare. The climate of Scandinavia in summer is more damp than
ours, and lightning is less frequent, so that strict forestry regulations are more
urgently required with us. Laws of much less severity than those referred to, if they
could be uniformly enforced in Canada, would soon have an appreciable effect in pre-
venting the wholesale destruction of valuable standing timber which is going on to
such an alarming extent in this country.

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THE NEED OF A RATIONAL FOREST POLICY IN THE
UNITED STATES.

A DIte ier

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION

AND THE

PENNSYLVANIA FORESTRY ASSOCIATION,

AT

HORTICULTURAL HALL, PHILADELPHIA,

OCTOBER 15TH, 1889,

BY

now. CAR OCEHU RZ

PHILADELPHIA :

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY’S OFFICE, AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION,

218 SoutH FouRTH STREET.

SPANGLER & Davis, Pas,, 529 Commence ST, FHILAD‘A.

AMERICAN ForRESTRY ASSOCIATION.

(ForMERLY AMERICAN Forestry ConGRress.)

FOUNDED 1882.

Hon. JAMES A. BEAVER, Harrisburg, Pa., President.

Hon. H. G. JoLy, Quebec, Canada, First Vice-President.

Henry M. FisHeEr, M. D., 919 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Treasurer.

N. H. Eaieston, Washington, D. C., Recording Secretary.

CHARLES C. BINNEY, 218 South Fourth St., Phila., Corresponding Secretary.
Membership dues, two dollars per annum.
Applications for membership, and contributions for the work of the asso-

ciation, should be sent to the treasurer.

ESTIMATED FORESTRY INTERESTS

ORY LEE

UNYLED StAces.

Acres covered with wood oe or 26 per cent. of total land

area, . ‘ - ; - : : 450,000,000
Acres burned over in boner year, 1880, ; : : : 10,274,089
Corresponding loss estimated at ; : : : $25, 462,250
Value of forests burned in 1889, . : : - : : $85,000,000
Acres cut over annually, ; A fas ais : : : 25,000,000
Wood consumed annually: . < - : : : :
Timber and lumber, cubic feet, -. : : : é 4,800,000,000
Railroads, Ce = : : : ; ‘ 500,000,000
Mining Timber, Ses : : : : : 150,000,000
Fences, acetone ‘ : ; A : 500,000,000
Fuel, rie : ; : ; . 18,000,000,000
Export, jee : : - : - 150,000,000
Total cubic feet, . < é : : ‘ : . 24,000,000,000
Value of wood consumed annually, : $1,000,000,000
Wood growing annually on the een forest area of He
United States, cubic feet, . : : . 12,000,000.000
Saw-mill capacity of the United States, ft. B. M. : : . 60,000,000, 000
Timber lands belonging to the U. S. Government, acres, = 70,000,000
Value of timber reported stolen from public lands during
seven years, ‘ : : ; : : $36,719,935
Amount recovered annie same Speed, + a Sy haan : $478,073
Amount expended for protective service, é : ; ' $475,000
Forest administration of United States Gov arinene None.

Forestry Division of Department of Agriculture, Bureau of
Information ; appropriation, - ; : - : $10,000

ADDRESS.

Members of the Forestry Associations, and Ladies and Gentlemen:

I cannot refrain from expressing my thanks to the Com-
mittee of Arrangements for doing me the honor of inviting me
to take part in this meeting. It is true, not until yesterday
could I see my way clear to come, and I have not been able to
‘ prepare an elaborate address, such as seems to have been
expected of me. All I can offer is a few off-hand remarks, more
in the nature of a conversational talk than of a formal speech.
I pray you therefore to divest yourselves of all solemnity of
expectation.

Let me in the first place assure you of my most earnest
sympathy in your efforts. I am heart and soul with you: nor
is this to me a new subject. I know, the advocates of the cause
to which you are devoted, are looked upon by many as a set of
amiable sentimentalists, who have fallen in love with the green-
ness of the woods and break out in hysteric wails when a tree
is cut down. I assure you I have been led to take an earnest
interest in this subject by considerations of an entirely unsen-
timental, practical nature, and this, no doubt, is the case with
most of you. The more study and thought I have given the
matter, the firmer has become my conviction that the destruction
of the forests of this country will be the murder of tts future
prosperity and progress. Thisis no mere figure of speech, no
rhetorical exaggeration. It is simply the teaching of the world’s
history, which no fair-minded man can study without reaching
the same conclusion.

I am aware that there are people who turn with a sneer from
the expression of any fear that our country may become sterile ;
who profess to be highly amused, when those countries in
Asia are pointed out to them, which once were called lands
“flowing with milk and honey;” whose mountains were cov-

4

ered with forests, whose hills with the vine and the fig-tree,
and whose plains with waving grainfields, which nourished
teeming and prosperous populations, building up mighty cities
and great monuments of the civilization of their times; now
bare soil, barren and desolate wastes and deserts, roamed over
by wild beasts and robbers, the ancient prosperity changed into
misery, famine and decay, the people relapsed into barbarism :
or when we point to Spain, once covered with a luxuriant vege-
tation, one of the most fertile countries of antiquity, the gran-
ary of the Roman Empire, at the close of the middle ages still
the realm in whose dominions the sun never set; now in a
great measure stripped bare, the old fertility gone, the people
in large districts struggling with poverty and want.

Infatuated persons among us turn up their noses at these
and similar lessons and superciliously exclaim: What do we in
this great and free country of ours care about abroad? Let me
say to you that the laws of nature are the same everywhere.
Whoever violates them anywhere, must always pay the penalty.’
No country ever so great and rich, no nation ever so powerful,
inventive, and enterprising can violate them with impunity.
We most grievously delude ourselves if we think that we can
form an exception to the rule. And we have made already a
most dangerous beginning, and more than a beginning, in the
work of desolation. The destruction of our forests is so fear-
fully rapid that, if we go on at the same rate, men whose hair is
already gray, will see the day when in the United States from
Maine to California and from the Mexican Gulf to Puget Sound
there will be no forest left worthy of the name.

Who is guilty of that destruction? It is not merely the
lumberman cutting timber on his own land for legitimate use
in the pursuit of business gain; it is the lumberman who in doing
so, destroys and wastes as much more without benefit to any-
body. It is not merely the settler or the miner taking logs for
his cabin, and fence rails and fire-wood, or timber for building a
shaft, but it is the settler and the miner laying waste acres or
stripping a mountain slope to get a few sticks. It is all these,
serving indeed legitimate wants, but doing it with a wasteful-
ness criminally reckless.

5

But it is not only these. It is the timber thief—making
haste to strip the public domain of what he can lay his hands
on, lest another timber thief get ahead of him—and in doing
this, destroying sometimes far more than he steals. It is the
tourist, the hunter, the mining prospector who, lighting his
camp-fire in the woods to boil water for his coffee or to fry his
bacon, and leaving that fire unextinguished when he proceeds,
sets the woods in flames and delivers countless square miles of
forest to destruction.

It is all these, but it is something more, and, let us confess
it, something worse. It is a public opinion looking with indif-
ference on this wanton, barbarous, disgraceful vandalism. It is
a spendthrift people recklessly wasting its heritage. It is a
government careless of the future and unmindful of a pressing
duty.

I have had some personal experience of this. The gentle-
man who introduced me did me the honor of mentioning the
attention I devoted to this subject years ago as Secretary of the
Interior. When I entered upon that important office, having
the public lands in charge, I considered it my first duty to look
around me and to study the problems I had to deal with.
Doing so I observed all the wanton waste and devastation I
have described. I observed the notion, that the public forests
were everybody’s property, to be taken and used or wasted as
anybody pleased, everywhere in full operation. I observed
enterprising timber thieves not merely stealing trees, but steal-
ing whole forests. I observed hundreds of saw mills in full
blast, devoted exclusively to the sawing up of timber stolen from
the public lands.

I observed a most lively export trade going on from Gulf
ports as well as Pacific ports, with fleets of vessels employed
in carrying timber stolen from the public lands to be sold in
foreign countries, immense tracts being devastated that some
robbers might fill their pockets.

I thought that this sort of stealing was wrong, in this
country no less than elsewhere. Moreover, it was against the
spirit and letter of the law. I, therefore, deemed it my duty to
arrest that audacious and destructive robbery. Not that I had

6

intended to prevent the settler and the miner from taking from
the public lands what they needed for their cabins, their fields,
or their mining shafts; but I deemed it my duty to stop at
least the commercial depredations upon the property of the
people. And to that end I used my best endeavors and the
means at my disposal, scanty as they were. :

What was the result? No sooner did my attempts in that
direction become known, than I was pelted with telegraphic
despatches from the regions most concerned, indignantly
inquiring what it meant that an officer of the Government dared
to interfere with the legitimate business of the country! Mem-
bers of Congress came down upon me, some with wrath in their
eyes, others pleading in a milder way, but all solemnly protest-
ing against my disturbing their constituents in this peculiar
pursuit of happiness. I persevered in the performance of my
plain duty. But when I set forth my doings in my annual
report and asked Congress for rational forestry legislation, you
should have witnessed the sneers at the outlandish notions of
this “foreigner” in the Interior Department; notions that,
as was said, might do for a picayunish German principality,
but were altogether contemptible when applied to this great
and free country of ours. By the way, some of the gentlemen
who sneered so greatly, might learn some lessons from those
picayunish German principalities, which would do them much
good. I recently re-visited my native land and saw again
some of the forests I had known in my younger days,—forests
which in the meantime had yielded to their owners or to the
government large revenues from the timber cut, but were now
nevertheless as stately as they had been before, because the
cutting had been done upon rational principles and the forests
had been steadily improved by scientific cultivation. I passed
over a large tract I had known as a barren heath, the heath of
Luneburg, which formerly, as the saying was, sustained only the
‘“‘Heidschnucken,” a species of sheep as little esteemed for their
wool as their mutton—the same heath now covered with a
dense growth of fine forest. Instead of sneering, our supercil-
ious scoffers would do better for themselves as well as for
the country, if they devoted their time a little more to studying

7

and learning the valuable lessons with which the experience of
other countries abounds.

What the result of my appeals was at the time I am speak-
ing of, you know. We succeeded in limiting somewhat the
extent of the depredations upon the public forests, and in bring-
ing some of the guilty parties to justice. A few hundred
thousand dollars were recovered for timber stolen, but the
recommendations of rational forestry legislation went for
nothing. Some laws were indeed passed, but they appeared
rather to favor the taking of timber from the public lands than
to stop it. Still, I persevered, making appeal after appeal, in
public and in private, but I found myself standing almost soli-
tary and alone. Deaf was Congress, and deaf the people seemed
to be. Only a few still voices rose up here and there in the
press in favor of the policy I pursued.

Thank Heaven, the people appear to be deaf no longer. It
is in a great measure owing to your wise and faithful efforts
that the people begin to listen, and that in several states practi-
cal steps have already been taken in the right direction.

As the chairman very truthfully and pointedly said, the
forestry question divides itself into two branches, preservation
and restoration. The first appears at present by far the most
important. There are forests in this as in all countries, the
preservation of which is absolutely necessary, because they
perform an office which nothing else can perform. Whatever
differences of opinion there may be as to the influence of the
forest on climate in other respects, it is universally conceded
that the forest is in an important sense the regulator of the flow
of waters. It is a well known story. Springs and water-
courses which flow with steadiness while the forest stands, are,
when the forest has disappeared, dried up or at least largely
reduced in volume one part of the year, to be transformed into
raging and destructive torrents during another part. In the
shape in which it would be a blessing, the water fails. It
appears in the shape of acurse. Of paramount necessity there-
fore, is the preservation of the forest which covers the head-
waters of the great rivers and their affluents, especially in the
mountain regions with steep and rocky slopes, where the forest

8

once destroyed can never be restored. Once strip the precipi-
tous mountain side, and the rain and melting snow will soon
wash down the scanty soil; the naked rock will appear on the
surface, and the growth of a protecting vegetation will be
impossible forever. The mountain torrents swelled by rain and
melted snow that no longer find any earth to soak, will then
periodically rush down with undiminished volume, inundating
the valleys below, and in many cases cover them with gravel and
loose rock swept down from the steep slopes, gradually render-
ing them unfit for agriculture and sometimes even for the habi-
tation of men. I have had occasion to observe results such in
more than one instance.

The preservation of mountain forests of this kind is there-
fore of supreme importance, and where they are still in public
possession, they should be set apart as permanent reservations,
either by the several states or by the general government—
or when they are in private lands, they should, if possible, be
regained by the government and reserved.

Steps of that kind have fortunately been taken with regard
to the Adirondacks in New York, but those steps have unfor-
tunately been too long delayed, for, as is reported, the destruc-
tion of the Adirondack forests have already gone far enough to
cause a diminution of the reliable water supply in the Mohawk
and Hudson rivers of from thirty to fifty per cent. nor
have they proved effective and comprehensive enough, for that
destruction is still going on at a distressing rate. As to Penn-
sylvania, a service of incalculable value would be rendered to
her people if the state regained control over the forest lands in
the heart of her mountain regions, for the hand of the destroyer
is mercilessly active. A few years ago I happened, on a railroad
inspection, to penetrate into the mountains of north-western
Pennsylvania and beheld a spectacle of direful import. A cor-
poration, a large majority of whose stock was said to be held in
Massachusetts, had acquired an area of forest land of, if I
remember rightly, 200,000 acres. They not only cut down
every tree, but they destroyed even the underbrush, not leaving
a stick or a shoot standing. They made the mountain sides as
bare as the palm of my hand. And when I asked the superin-

9

tending officer of the company what was meant by this radical
destruction, which would not even leave a chance for the forest
to grow up on these slopes in the future, the answer
was, that the company did not wish the forest to grow up there
again ; it was its object first to sell the logs and then to clear
the land for the purpose of selling it as pasture. It is not
hazardous to predict that when those mountain sides have been
washed by rain for a few seasons, many, if not most of them,
will no longer furnish verdure enough to nourish a goat. Such
things are going on in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and
unless in some way they be stopped, it will soon be too late.

There is a mountain region in the far north-west which
demands the earliest possible attention of our national authori-
ties. It is the great area of mountain forest covering the head-
waters of the Missouri and Columbia. The government cannot
too soon take effective steps to protect these forests, which are
among the most important in the United States, against
destruction, by making them a permanent reservation and
having them carefully guarded.

When speaking of the preservation of forests, we do not,
as has already been eloquently set forth by our chairman, mean
that they should be kept untouched and unused as the miser
keeps his-hoard, but that they should be made useful in a way
preventing their destruction and even improving their value, as
forests are made useful in other civilized countries.

In my first annual report as Secretary of the Interior,
twelve years ago, I made some recommendations leading to
that end, the main points being in substantial accord with the
project of a bill drafted by your committee. Permit me to
read them:

“All timber lands still belonging to the United States
should be withdrawn from the operation of the pre-emption
and homestead laws, as well as the location of the various kinds
of scrip. Timber lands fit for agricultural purposes should be
sold, if sold at all, only for cash, and so graded in price as to
make the purchaser pay for the value of the timber on the land.
This will be apt to make the settler careful and provident in
the disposition he makes of the timber,

fe)

“A sufficient number of government agents should be
provided to protect the timber on public lands from depreda-
tion, and to institute to this end the necessary proceedings
against depredators, by seizures and by criminal as well as civil
actions. Such agents should also be authorized and instructed,
under the direction of the Department of the Interior or the
Department of Agriculture, to sell for the United States, in
order to satisfy the current local demand, timber from the public
lands under proper regulations, and in doing so especially to
see to it that no large areas be entirely stripped of their timber,
so as not to prevent the natural renewal of the forest. This
would enable the people of the mining states and of the terri-
tories to obtain the timber they need in a legal way, at the same
time avoiding the dangerous consequences above pointed out.

“The extensive as well as wanton destruction of the timber
upon the public lands by the wilful or negligent and careless
setting of fires calls for earnest attention. While in several, if
not all of the states, such acts are made highly penal offenses
by statute, no law of the United States provides specifically for
their punishment when committed upon the public lands, nor
for a recovery of damages thereby sustained. I would therefore
recommend the passage of a law prescribing a severe penalty
for the wilful, negligent, or careless setting of fires on the
public lands of the United States, principally valuable for the
timber thereon, and also for the recovery of all damages thereby
sustained.

“While such measures might be provided for by law with-
out necessary delay, I would also suggest that the President
be authorized to appoint a commission, composed of qualified
persons, to study the laws and practices adopted in other
countries for the preservation and cultivation of forests, and to
report to Congress a plan for the same object applicable to our
circumstances.”

The provisions your project of a forestry bill has added to
this plan are certainly appropriate, especially the proposed
Forestry Commission to superintend the execution of this
policy.

It has been objected that the introduction of such a system

ip i

would involve an addition to the number of public officers and
cost money. Certainly it would, as the army costs money, as
the police costs money, as the building of sewers costs money,
as public schools cost money, and as so many other things
necessary to the safety and well being of the people cost money.
But I do not hesitate to say that the money spent for the army,
the police, and public schools is not spent to greater public ad-
vantage than the money spent for the introduction of a rational
forestry system would be. However, a part of the public service
already existing might well be used for the purpose of guarding
at least the forests belonging to the public domain of the United
States. It may well be assumed that although trifling Indian
disturbances may still occur here and there, the danger of
Indian wars on a large scale is now behind us. If a wise, just,
and humane Indian policy be followed, we may be sure that
it is altogether over. Nota few of our outlying military posts
may then be abandoned, and a part of our army will become dis-
posable for other purposes. Why should not two or three
battalions be organized as forest guards or forest rangers, the
men, perhaps, also to receive some useful instruction to fit them
for their new duties? Surely, no soldier could in time of peace
and there being no prospect of war, be more usefully em-
ployed.

Of the influence of forests on climate and of the necessity of
planting or re-planting them where they fall below the propor-
tion which the area of forest should bear to the aggregate area
of the country, men more competent than I am have spoken
and will speak to you. We are all agreed also on the necessity
of spreading information on this important subject. No re-
spectable university or agricultural college should be without a
department in which forestry as a science is taught; and most
of us will no doubt see the day when the importance of that
science will be recognized by every thinking American. Let
us hope that this appreciation will come in time. I regret, we
cannot forcibly enough impress upon the American people the
necessity of speedy measures looking to the preservation of our
mountain forests which, when once destroyed, cannot be renew-
ed. Unless this be done in time, our children will curse the

12

almost criminal improvidence of their ancestors, but if it is done
in time, those who are instrumental in doing it will deserve and
will have the blessings of future generations.

To bring up the public opinion of this country to the point
where it will command such measures, a vigorous and unceas-
ing agitation is required. I do not underestimate the difficul-
ties it will have to overcome. It is the shortsighted greed
which acts upon the rule to grab all that can be got at the
moment, and “let the devil take the hindmost,” not stopping to
consider that he who does so may be among the hindmost
himself, and that in this case his children certainly will be.. It
is that spirit of levity, so prevalent among our people, which
teaches to eat and drink and be merry to-day, unmindful of the
reckoning that will come to-morrow. It is the cowardice of the
small politician who, instead of studying the best interests of
the people, trembles lest doing his full duty may cost him a
vote, and who is not seldom apt to fear the resentment of the
thieves more than that of honest men.

Such influences you will have to overcome, but you will
meet them in the future as bravely as you have met them in
the past, and may a speedy and complete triumph crown your
patriotic efforts.

PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

American Forestry Association

AT THE

Summer Meeting, held in Quebeé, September 2—5, 1890,

AND AT THE

Ninth Annual Meeting, held in Washington, December 30, 18g0.

WASHINGTON, D. C.
Secretary’s Office, 1429 New York Ave.
1891.

NOTE.—The American Forestry Association, whether
inviting persons to read papers from its platform, or publishing
those papers afterwards in connection with its proceedings, is not
to be understood as endorsing the views expressed, or adopting
them as its own. It offers its platform for the purpose of promot-
ing a free and full discussion of all questions of importance

connected with the subject of Forestry.

9

CONTENTS.

Officers of the Association.
Members. :
Constitution and By-Laws.
Minutes of the Quebec Meeting.
Report of the Executive Committee.
Report of the Committee on Legislation.
Minutes of the Washington Meeting. ,
Supplemental Report of the Executive Committee.
PAPERS:

The Forest as a National Resource. . . BE. Fernow.
Report on the Administration of the Public Forests of

Quebec. : : : ‘ . Bk, Taehé.
Rocky Mountain Forests. . . Col. Edgar T, Ensign.
Forest Administration in France. . 1. L. de Vilmorin.
Tree Planting on the Prairies. . . Hon. H. G. Joly.
Systematic Timber-cutting in Quebec. J. X. Perrault.

Effect of Forest Mismanagement on Orchards. B. £. Fernow.

Forestry at the Dominion Experimental Farms. John Craig.
Forestry on the Western Plains of Canada.

William Saunders.
Minnesota Woodsmen. : : : .( Et, B. dyes
Forests in their Relation to Public Health.

Dr. Peter A. Bryce.

Forest Preservation and Restoration. J. C. Chapais.
What Causes the Cyclones. Mrs. S. W. Dodds, M. D.
The Preservation of Small Forests. Dr. N. H. Egleston.
Experiments with Southern Trees in the Far North.
Auguste Duputs.
Shade and Ornamental Trees for Cities. George Moore.

36

102

105
108

4
OFFICERS FOR 1890-91:

President: WILLIAM ALVORD, San Francisco, California.

Vice-Presidents :

Hon. H. G. Joy, i ROBERT W. FURNAS,
Point Platon, Quebec. Brownville, Neb.
Dr. CHARLES MOHR, J. B. HARRISON,
Mobile, Ala. Franklin Falls, N. H.

D. M. RIORDAN,

W. A. STILES,
Flagstaff, Ariz. Ty.

Deckerton, N. J.

ABBOT KINNEY, Morris K. JESUP,

Lamanda, Cal. New York, N. Y.
GEORGE H. PARSONS, ProF. W. R. LAZENBY,

Colorado Springs, Col. Columbus, O.
Dr. B. G. NORTHROP, E. W. HAMMOND,

Clinton, Conn. Wimer, Ore.
Hon. C. R. PRINGLE, HERBERT WELSH,

Sandersville, Ga. Philadelphia, Pa.
GEORGE W. MINIER, L. D. DAVIs,

Minier, I]. Newport, R. I.
PROF. JAMES TROOP, PROF. H, A. GREEN,

Lafayette, Ind. Chester, S. C.
C. L. WATROUS, PROF. CHARLES A. KEFFER,

Des Moines, Io. Brookings, S. D.
ProF, E. A. POPENOE, CoL. THoMAS T. WRIGHT,

Manhattan, Kan. Nashville, Tenn.
Hon. A. M. Brown, W. GOODRICH JONES, |

Elizabethtown, Ky. Temple, Tex.
JOHN E. Hopss, Dr. HirRAM A. CUTTING,

North Berwick, Me. Lunenburgh, Vt.
J. D. W. FRENCH, H. C. PUTNAM,

Boston, Mass. Eau Claire, Wis.
ProF. W. J. BEAL, Hon. EDWIN WILLETs,

Lansing, Mich. Washington, D. C.
Hon. C. C. ANDREWS, HON. G. W. ALLAN,

St. Paul, Minn. Toronto, Ont.

Pror. WILLIAM TRELEASE,
St. Louis, Mo.

i

Treasurer: HENRY M. FISHER, M. D., 317 8. 12th St., Philadelphia, Pa.
Recording Sec’y: Dr, N, H. EGLESTON, Dep't of Agriculture, Washington, D. C,
Cor. Sec’y: EDWARD A, BOWERS, 1429 New York Ave., Washington, D.C.

.

—o—

Executive Committee.

B. E. FERNow, Chairman, CoL. E. T. ENSIGN,
H. B. AYRES, Hon. WARREN HIGLEY,
CHARLES C. BINNEY, ¢ HENRY E. PELLEW,

{With the Officers of the Association. ]

Committee on Publication and Membership.

CHARLES C, BINNEY, Chairman, W. A. STILES,
HENRY M. FISHER, M. D., HERBERT WELSH.

J. D. W. FRENCH,

Arbor Day Committee.

Dr. B. G. NortTHROP, Chairman, Hon. B. L. GouLpINe,
Hon. STERLING J. MORTON, W. GOODRICH JONES.
Dr. N. H. EGLESTON,

Annual Dues, $2. Life Membership, $50.

” Admission to membership can be effected by applying to CHARLES C. BINNEY, Chair-
man of Membership Committee, 218 South 4th Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

Other communications should be addressed to the Corresponding Secretary

MEM

+ Life Members on new plan.

ALABAMA.

Cullman, John G., Culiman.

Mohr, Dr. Chas., Mobile.
ARIZONA TY.

Riordan, D. M., Flagstaff.

CALIFORNIA.

tAlvord, William, San Francisco.

Alvord, Mrs. William, San Francisco.

Blakeman, Leontine Spotts, 2420 Pa-
cific Ave., San Francisco.

*Blanchard, Nathan.

Brown, F. E. Redlands.

Brown, Thomas, 1019 Bush St., San
Francisco.

*Fernald, Hon. Charles, Santa Barbara.

Garden, Jonathan H., Park Conserva-
tory, San Francisco.

Keeney, Charles M., 2423 Fillmore
St., San Francisco.

Keeney, Miss Ethel §., 2423 Fillmore
St., San Francisco.

Keeney, James W., M. D., 2220 Clay
St., San Francisco.

Keeney, Miss Mary A., 2220 Clay St.,
San Francisco.

Kinney, Abbott, Lamanda.

McLaren, John, Golden Gate Park,
San Francisco.

Rock, John, San Jose.

Wright, B. C., 1703 Gough St., San
Francisco.

- COLORADO. |
Ehrich, Louis R., Colorado Springs.
Ensign, Edgar T., Colorado Springs.
Parsons, George H., Colorado Springs.
Titcomb, John S., Denver.
Van Diest, P. H., Denver.

CONNECTICUT.
Alsop, Dr. J. W., Middletown.
Brewer, Prof. W. H., 418 Orange St.,
New Haven.
*Gold, T. S., West Cornwall.
Northrop, Dr. B. G., Clinton.
Williams, F. W., New Haven.

FLORIDA.

Clubbs, A. V., Pensacola.
Keyser, Mrs. W. J., Milton.
Marks, N. R., Orlando.

BERS.

* Old Life Members.

GEORGIA.
Bacon, D. C., Savannah.
Bullock, Hon. Rufus V., Atlanta.
McLendon, 8. G., Thomasville.
Pringle, Hon. C. R., Sandersville.
Reppard, R. B., Savannah.
Root, Sidney, Atlanta.
Tift, Nelson, Albany.
ILLINOIS.
Deering, Chas. W., 16 Fullerton Ave.,
Chicago.
Hill, D., Dundee.
Minier, Geo. W., Minier.
*Peterson, P. S., Box 383, Chicago.
Sidway, L. B., 59 Dearborn St., Chi-
cago.
INDIANA.

Ratliff, J. C., Richmond.
Troop, Prof. James, Lafayette.

Iowa.
Watrous, C. L., Des Moines.

KANSAS.

Mason, S. C., Manhattan.
Popenoe, Prof. R. A., Manhattan.

KENTUCKY.

Brown, Hon. A. M., Elizabethtown.
Hayes, W. H., Bardstown Junction.
Logan, A. H., Shelbyville.

MAINE.

Hammond, Geo. W., Yarmouthvyille.
*Hobbs, John E., North Berwick.
Hobbs, Miss Elizabeth K., North Ber-
| wick.

*Jackson, Thomas, Portland.

| Jewett, Miss Sarah O., South Berwick.
| Talbot, Hon. G. P., Portland.

| MASSACHUSETTS.

| Appleton, Francis H., 251 Marlbo-
rough St., Boston.
TBeebe, E. Pierson, 36 Temple Place,

Boston. Box 1723 P. O.
|. *Bowditch, James H., 68 Devonshire
St., Boston.

| Brewer, W. F., Hingham.
Brooks, Henry, 97 Beacon St., Boston.
Brooks, P. C., 7 Arlington St., Boston.

(5)

MASSACHUSETIS.—Continued.
Burnett, Joseph, 27 Central St., Boston. |

Carter, John W.,
Boston.

Chaplin, H. W., 87 Milk St.,

Chase, George B., 234 Beacon St.,
Boston.

Codman, Henry 8., Brookline.

*Doane, Thomas, Charlestown.

*Fay, Joseph 8., Wood’s Holl.

}+Fay, Miss Sarah B., Wood’s Holl.

172 Columbus Ave.,

Flagg, Augustus, care Little, Brown
& Co., Boston.
French, John D. W., 42 Common- |

wealth Ave., Boston.
tGardner, John L.,
Boston.

22 Congress St.,

Boston. |

*Ginn, Edwin, Tremont Place, Boston. |

Hunnewell, H., 87 Milk St.,

Jackson, Robert T., 33 Gloucester St.,
Boston.

Kidder, Nathan T., Milton.

tLeeson, J. R., Box 2221, Boston.

Boston. |

MINNESOTA.

*Andrews, Hon. C. C., St. Paul.

Chute, Richard, Minneapolis.

*Jewell N ursery Co., S. E. Emery,
Secretary, Lake City.

*Sewall, Jos. S., 46 ‘Gilfillan Block,
St. Paul.

Weyerhauser, Fred’k,
Ave., St. Paul.

Winchell, N. H.,

435 Summit

Minneapolis.

MISSOURI.

Kern, M. J., 705 Olive St., St. Louis.
Trelease, Prof. William, St. Louis.

NEBRASKA.

Bennett, J. M., Hebron.

Furnas, Robert W., Brownville.

*Morton, Hon. J. Sterling, Nebraska
City.

| NEw HAMPSHIRE.

Lodge, Rich. W., Mass. Inst. of Tech- |

nology, Boston.
*Low, John, Chelsea.

Mason, Miss E. F., 1 Walnut St.,B’st’n. |

*May, John J., Box 2348, Boston.

Morse, Anson D., Amherst.

Olmsted, Frederick N., Brookline.

Olmsted, J. C., Brookline.

Paine, R. T., 6 Joy St., Boston.

Peabody, Oliver W., care Kidder,
Peabody & Co., Boston.

*Rollins, Wm. Herbert, 252 Marlbo-
rough St., Boston.

Russell, H. §., Milton.

Saltonstall, Henry, 26 Commonwealth
Ave., Boston.

Shaw, Francis, 1 Joy St., Boston.

*Smith, Benjamin G., Cambridge.

Stevens, Mrs. Moses T., North And-
over.

Strong, William C., Waban.

*Waters, Edwin F., 131 Newbury St.,
Boston.

*Wheildon, William W., Concord.

White, Dr. James C., 259 Marlbo-
rough St., Boston.

Williams, John D.,
Boston.

Woods, John M.,

160 State St.,

MICHIGAN.
Beal, Prof. W. J., Agricultural Col-

lege, Lansing.

*Mathieu, Jean A., 52 Moffat Block,

Detroit.

86 Canal St., Boston. |

|

Bellows, Russell, Walpole.
Harrison, J. B., Franklin Falls.

| NEW JERSEY.

Davis, Samuel D., Lakewood.
Wall St., N. Y.)

Dawes, Lewis C., Englewood.

Girtanner, Jules, Linden.

Peters, Rey. John E., Se. Doc., Pleas-
antyille.

Stiles, W. A., Deckerton; Garden &
Forest Pub. Co., Tribune Bldg., New
York.

(44

NEW YORK.

Adams, Chas. K., Ithaca.

*Bishop, Heber R., 993 Fifth Ave.,
New York.

Crary, J. D., 72 Wall St., New York.

Cutting, Ww. Bayard, 32. Nassau St.,
New York.

DeForest, Robert W., 120 Broadway,
New York.

Deming, William B.,
Place, New York.

Dolge, Alfred, Dolgeville.

*Dudley, P. H. ,o4 Pine St. , New York.

*Hicks, John §., Roslyn, Lon

Higley, Hon. Warren, 55 Br’ way, N.Y.

Hildebrand, Wilhelm, 1 Br’ way, N. Y.

Hubbard, R. J., Cazenovia.

Jesup, Morris ce 52 William St.,
New York.

Kelsey, Frederick W., 208 Broadway,
New York.

King, John A., Great Neck, L. I.

Ledyard, L. W., Cazenovia.

52 Exchange

NEw YorK—Continued.

Marié, Peter, 48 W. 19th St.,
York.

Martin, Edmund P.,
St., Brooklyn.

Meyer, L. H., Box 208, New York.

+Palmer, Wm. J., 32 Nassau St., New
York.
Pellew, Henry E., Katonah, (1637 |

Mass. Ave., Wash., D. C.)

Pinchot, Gifford, 2 Gramercy Park,
New York.

Potts, Wm., 56 Wall St., New York.

Prentiss, Prof. A. N., Cornell Univer-
sity, Ithaca.

Preston, George R., Cazenovia.

Rose, A. P., Geneva.

Starr, Walter D., 14th St. and 10th |

Ave., New York.
Stephens, W. Hudson, Lowville.
*Thayer, Dr. W. A., Cooperstown.
Thomson, Lemon, 8 Ten Broeck St.,
Albany.
Tratman, E. E. Russell, C. E.,
Tribune Building, N. Y.
TVanderbilt, George W., 640 Fifth
Ave., New York.
Wilson, Gen. James Grant, 15 E. 74th
St., New York.

OHIO.

*Bambach, George, Ripley.

*Fisher, W. Hubbell, Cincinnati.

Gamble, James N., Cincinnati.

Gano, John A., Cincinnati.

Lazenby, Prof. William Lie Experi-
ment Sta., Columbus.

Orton, Prof. Edward, State Geological
Survey, Columbus.

Poindexter, Rev. James, Columbus.

*Read, Prof. M. C., Hudson.

*Springer, Dr. A., Cincinnati.

*Steele, Robt. W., Dayton.

*Townshend, N. S., Columbus.

*Warder, Reuben H., North Bend.

New |

169 S. Oxford |

103 |

PENNSYLVANIA—Continued.

Coxe, Mrs. E. B., Drifton.

Edge, Thos. J., Harrisburg.

Elwyn, Rey. A L., 1422 Walnut St.,
Phila.

Fisher, Dr. Henry M., 3178S. 12th St.,
Phila.

Hazeltine, Frank, 1825 Walnut St.,
Phila.

Heston, Mrs. Geo. T.,

James, H. F., Franklin.

Jayne, H. LaBarre, 505 Chestnut St.,
Phila.

Jones, Horatio G.,
Phila.

tLea, Henry C., 2000 Walnut St.,
Phila.

Newtown.

135 S. Fifth St.,

Lundy, Rev. J. P., 245 S. 18th St.,
Phila.

Lundy, Mrs. J. P., 245 S. 18th St.,
Phila.

*Peabody, Chas. B., 1415 Spruce St.,
Phila.

Praetorius, Geo. O., Pottsville.

Sellers, William, 1600 Hamilton St.,
Phila.

Walker, William, 45 S. 3rd St., Alle-
oheny.

Welsh, Herbert, 1305 Arch St., Phila.

Wolfe, Dr. Samuel, 1624 Diamond St.,
Phila.

| RHODE ISLAND.

Davis, L. D., 207 Thames St.,
port.

Emmons, Arthur B., Newport.

Mason, Miss Ida, Rhode Island Ave.,
Newport.

New-

| SouTH CAROLINA.

Atkinson, Prof. Geo. F., Columbia.
Green, Prof. H. A., Chester.
Lawton, Hon. John, Lawtonville.
McKie, Thos. J., Wood Lawn.

Weltz, Leo., Wilmington. SouTH DAKOTA.

OREGON. Keffer, Prof. Chas. A., Brookings.
Hammond, BE. Wiss Wimer. / TENNESSEE.

PENNSYLVANIA. | Goulding, B. L., Chattanooga.
Anders, Dr. J. M., 1637 N. Broad St., | | Wright, Col. Thos. T., Nashville.

Phila. | TEXAS.
) ;

Peet F., Jr., 231 8. Front 8t., Jones, W. Goodrich, Temple.
Beaver, Hon. James A., Bellefonte. | VERMONT.

Binney, Chas. C.,218 8. 4th St., Phila.

Coates, Geo. M., 1817 De Lancey PE;
Phila.

Coxe, Mrs. Brinton, 1711 Locust St.,
Phila.

Battell, Jos., Middlebury.
Cutting, Hiram B.. Lunenburg.

WISCONSIN,
Putnam, H. C., Eau Claire.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

*Abbe, Prof. Cleveland, Washington,

tAyres, H. B., Dept. of Agriculture.

Bowers, Edw. A., 1429 N. Y. Ave.

Dickson, Dr. S. H., 1728 I St., N. W.

Egleston, Dr. N. H., Dept. of Agri-
culture.

Fernow, Bernhard E., Dept. of Agri-
culture.

Fernow, Mrs. B. E., Washington.

Riley, Prof. C. V., 1714 13th St.,
Washington.

Robbins, Mrs. M. A., Dept. of Agri-
culture.

*Warder, Prof. Robert’ B., Howard
University.

Willets, Hon. Edwin, Dept. of Agri-
culture.

ONTARIO.

Allan, Hon. G. W., Toronto.

Blue, Hon. A., Dept. of Agriculture,
Toronto.

Bryce, Dr. Peter H., Toronto.

Craig, John, Dominion Exp.
Ottawa.

*Denton, John M., London.

Heneker, R. W., Sherbrooke.

Morgan, J. H., Amherstburg.

Farm,

OnTARIO—Continued.

Saunders, Prof. Wm., Ottawa.

Thane, E. 8., Ottawa.

White, A., Dept. of Crown Lands,
Toronto.

QUEBEC.

Barnard, E. A., Dept. of Agriculture.
Quebec.

Barth, Ulric, Quebec.

Beaubien, Hon. Lewis, Montreal.

Campbell, Archibald, Quebec.

Department of Crown Lands, Felix
Campeau, Accountant, Quebec.

*Drummond, A. F., Montreal.

Greenough, W. P., Pontneuf.

Joly, Hon. H. G., Pointe Platon.

LeMoine, J. M., Quebec.

*Little, Wm., Montreal.

Moore, Geo., Montreal.

Moore, H. D., Moore’s Sta.

Perrault, Hon. J. X., Montreal.

Price, H. M., Quebec.

Robitaille, Hon. L. A., Quebec, Box
742.

Ross, Hon. David, Quebec.

Ross, W. J., Quebec.

Shanley, Walter, Montreal.

_Turner, Richard, Quebec.

CONSTITUTION

OF THE

AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION.

ARTICLE 1. This Association shall be known as the American Forestry
Association.

ARTICLE 2. The objects of this Association shall be the discussion of sub-
jects relating to tree-planting, the conservation, management, and renewal of
forests, and the climatic and other influences that affect their welfare ; the col-
lection of forest statistics; and the advancement of educational, legislative, or
other measures tending to the promotion of these objects. It shall especially
endeavor to centralize the work done and diffuse the knowledge gained.

ARTICLE 3. Any person may become a member of this Association, subject
to approval by the Executive Committee, by the payment of the annual gues.
The annual dues shall be two dollars. Any member may become, by the pay-
ment of fifty dollars at one time, a life member, and shall not be liable thereafter
to annual dues. Any person contributing one hundred dollars to the Perma-
nent Fund of the Association shall be a Patron.

ARTICLE 4. The officers of this Association, to be elected at the annual
meeting, shall be a president, one vice-president for each State, Territory, and
Province represented in the Association, a treasurer, a recording secretary, a
corresponding secretary, and an executive committee consisting of these officers
and six other members. Three of this committee shall constitute a quorum.
This committee shall choose its own chairman. ;

ARTICLE 5. The President shall preside at all meetings of the Association
in General Session, and in his absence a Vice-President shall preside.

ARTICLE 6. The Recording Secretary shall keep arrecord of the proceedings
of the Association, and shall be custodian of all documents, books, and col-
lections ordered to be preserved.

ARTICLE 7. The Corresponding Secretary shall conduct the correspondence
of the Association.

ARTICLE 8. The Treasurer shall have charge of all funds, and pay out the
same on the direction of the Executive Committee.

ARTICLE 9. The Association at any regular meeting, or its Executive Com-

(9)

IO

mittee in the intervals between its meetings, may appoint such local or special
committees as may be deemed proper, and shall define their duties.

ARTICLE 10. The annual meeting of the Association shall be in the months
of August, September or October, or at such times and places as shall be deter-
mined by a vote in General Session or by the Executive Committee. Special
meetings may be called by the Executive Committee.

ARTICLE 11. At each annual meeting there shall be an election of officers
for the ensuing year, and they shall remain in office until othersare chosen. In
cases of vacancies occurring in the intervals between the annual meetings, they
may be filled by the Executive Committee until others are selected. In case
of absence of an officer at a regular meeting his place may be deemed vacant.

ARTICLE 12. The officers of States, Territories, Provinces, or Local Forestry
Associations, or their delegates, or the delegates of any Government, may par-
ticipate in the proceedings of the Association as Honorary Members.

ARTICLE 13. This Constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the
members present at any annual meeting.

BY-LAWS.

1. Papers or abstracts of papers to be read must be sent two weeks before
any meeting, for classification, to the Corresponding Secretary.

2. The following classification of subjects is adopted for the reading of
papers :

Section A. Forest Planting, Forest Management, Forestry Proper, Pres-
ervation of Forests.

Section B. Forest Economy, Technology and Statistics.

Section C. Applied Science and Climatology, General Topics.

3. Contributors who are present shall have the preference in reading their
papers.

4. Any member shall be entitled to the privilege of using any books or
documents, not of record, at the discretion of the Recording Secretary.

Summer Meeting,

Held in Quebec, Sept. 2d to 5th, 1890.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2d.

The Association met in the Hall of the Legislative Council at
8 Pp. M., many ladies and gentlemen of Quebec being present.
Hon H. G. Joly, of Quebec, First Vice-President, called the meet-
ing to order and read a letter from Gov. James A. Beaver, of Penn-
sylvania, the President, regretting his unavoidable absence and
expressing his earnest wishes for the success of the meeting. The
Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, Mr. Angers, then welcomed the
Association on the part of the Provincial Government, referring to
the importance of the lumber interests of Canada, the necessity of
proper forest administration, and the system now pursued in Que-
bec and the other provinces, which may be summed as follows :

In Canada licenses are issued for cutting timber on the Govern-
ment land. A very large proportion of all the timber land of the
country is still in the hands of the Government, hence the Gov-
ernment ean control the cutting of the timber, and has adopted
certain rules with regard to the cut, which it is the duty of the
Government Inspectors to see enforced. Thus, pines less than
twelve inches and spruce trees less than nine inches at the butt
must by law remain free from the axe. By this system the young
trees are spared, and at the end of twenty or thirty years a new
crop of commercially valuable timber is ready to be cut.

One can get some idea of the importance of the timber product
of Canada from the statement that between 1867 and 1889 430,000-
ooo feet of lumber, board measure, and 69,600,000 cubic feet of
timber, had been cut inthe Province of Quebec alone. The Crown
timber dues amounted to $9,800,000, and last year, from that
source alone, the Province received nearly a million dollars.

This drain upon the forests, he said, could only be borne if they
were wisely and economically managed, and the American Forestry
Association was looked to for advice and suggestions in regard to
such management.

Mr. J. M. Le Moine, President of the Reception Committee,

(11)

re

followed with an address of welcome on behalf of the citizens.
These addresses were responded to by Mr. Bernhard E. Fernow,
Chief of the Forestry Division of the United States Department of
Agriculture. He spoke of the example of forest preservation set
by the early American settlers, especially those of Canada, an ex-
ample which their descendants had ceased to follow, of the rise,
growth, and work of the Association, and of the help and encour-
agement received from its Canadian members.

Brief addresses were made of Dr. Peter H. Bryce, of Toronto,
Mr. William Little of Montreal, and Mr. Joly, after which the
meeting adjourned.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3d.

Morning Session, 10 A. M., Mr. Joly in the Chair.

A resolution to defer the election of officers to a winter meeting,
to be held in Washington, D. C., was adopted.

The members and delegates in attendance were reported as
follows :

Colorado. Col. E. T. Ensign, Forest Commissioner.

Florida. Mrs. W. J. Keyser, Milton.

Maine. Hon. George F. Talbot, Portland.

Massachusetts. J. D. W. French, Boston; N. T. Kidder, Mil-
ton ; John M. Woods, Somerville. ry

New Hampshire. J. B. Harrison, of the Forest Commission.

New York. Gen. James Grant Wilson, New York.

Ohio. Prof. W. R. Lazenby, Agric. Experiment Sta., Columbus.

Pennsylvania, Mrs. Brinton Coxe, Philadelphia; Thos. J.
Edge, Secy. State Board of Agriculture; Dr. Henry M. Fisher,
Philadelphia ; Mrs. George F. Heston, Newtown.

District of Columbia. B E. Fernow, Chief of Forestry Division ;
Mrs. Fernow.

Ontario. Won. Archibald Blue, Dr. Peter H. Bryce, Toronto ;
John Craig, Ottawa; Hon. A. White, Toronto; Aubrey White,
Deputy Commissioner of Crown Lands.

OQucbec. Edward A. Barnard, Secy. Board of Agriculture,
Ulric Barthe, Quebec ; Hon. Louis Beaubien, Montreal; Archi-
bald Campbell, Quebec ; W. P. Greenough, Pontneuf; Hon. H.
G. Joly de Lotbiniére, Pointe Platon ; J. M. Le Moine, Quebec ;
William Little, George Moore, Montreal; H. O. Moore, Moore’s
Station; J. X. Perrault, Montreal; H. M. Price, Hon. lL. A.

13

Robitaille, Hon. D. A. Ross, Hon. E. E. Taché, Deputy Commis-
sioner of Crown Lands, Richard Turner, Prest. of Chamber of
Commerce, Quebec.

Reports of the conditions of forestry interests in the several
States and provinces were then made as follows :

Col. E. IT. Ensign made a report for Colorado.

Hon. George F. Talbot, of Maine, spoke of the wasteful method
of utilizing forest products that he had observed in his own State.
Immense numbers of young pine and spruce trees which, if left to
themselves, would in the course of a few years furnish valuable lum-
ber, ‘were habitually sacrificed for wood pulp, scantling, matches,
etc., while remnants from the saw-mill would answer the same pur-
pose. ‘‘ We, in the State of Maine,’’ he said, ‘‘are obliged to go in
search of our masts to the State of Washington ; to Tennessee or
Michigan for boards of a quality good enough for the fine inside
work of our hotels and private houses. Our water courses, since
the destruction of our forests, have become capricious torrents, in-
undating the whole surrounding country after each heavy rain,
while the beds of these streams dry up a few hours later.”’

Mr. Talbot alluded to the scheme which had been proposed :
that townships should secure the title to tracts of waste lands,
these lands to be protected, as far as possible, from fire and pastur-
age, and administered by the town for the benefit of the tax-payers
in such town or township. This scheme he thought was particu-
larly applicable to Maine, where the assessments on timber land
were too high and the risks too great for owners not provided with
large capital to keep land in timber.

Mr. John M. Woods presented a brief statement of the condition
of the forests and woodlands of Massachusetts.

General James Grant Wilson, of New York, spoke of the terri-
ble devastation in the Adirondack forests, and of the efforts that
were now being made to secure State control of those forests. He
alluded to the beneficial results of Arbor Day, and the private at-
tempts at reforesting waste districts; mentioning those of Hon.
William Walter Phelps, who had for some years been engaged in
this work, planting on an average 40,000 trees each year.

Prof. W. R. Lazenby reported the condition of affairs in Ohio.

Mr. Aubrey White, Deputy Commissioner of Crown Lands for
the Province of Ontario, gave a very interesting account of the
present forest administration of that Province. The Government
of Ontario, like that of Quebec, leases the right to cut timber on

14

certain limits, but restrictions are also impos2d in Ontario as to the
size of the timber to be cut. Mr. White gave figures from the
Crown Lands’ office, showing how large had been the increase of
late years of the license fees for timber limits.

He also presented some very interesting details on the Ontario
system of forest protection against fire by the joint action of the
holders of limits and the Government, each contributing an equal
‘share of the expense.

The reports of the Executive and Legislation Committees were
then read by the Acting Secretary, Dr. H. M. Fisher.

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

To the Members of the American Forestry Association :

The Executive Committee presents the following report on the
condition of the Association, the work done since the last annual
meeting, and the condition and prospects of the movement for
forest reform.

At the annual meeting in October last an important change was
made in the composition of this committee, in order, as it was
hoped, not only to render it more effective for continuous work by
securing a quorum of members within reach of each other, but also
to keep it in touch with the forestry movement all over the country
by officially connecting with the committee one member, a vice-
president, in every state, territory and province. In fulfilment of
this latter feature of the plan, your committee, as instructed, has
elected vice-presidents in twenty-five states, one territory, the Dis-
trict of Columbia, and the Province of Ontario, Quebec being
already represented. Vice-presidents for the four other states
where we have members will be chosen as soon as proper selection
can be made. The plan was a good one, save in one most impor-
tant particular, and this defect has seriously crippled the work of
your committee. No five members (the number fixed as a quorum)
reside near enough to each other to hold any meetings without
decided inconvenience,.and hence all conference has had to be by
correspondence, and the treasurer and corresponding secretary have
had to act on their own responsibility much more than they had
any desire to do. If hereafter the committee be composed chiefly
of members resident in one place, who can meet regularly, they

will not only accomplish far more work, but also stimulate the

I5

activity of the vice-presidents, and avail themselves of the help
rendered by the latter. The wisdom of having these vice-presi-
dents is already seen in the accession of new members, many of
whom have been brought in through their influence.

Owing to the need of the change above suggested, it was thought
best to defer the incorporation decided upon at the last meeting.

Though thus defectively organized, the committee has not been
inactive. The treasurer’s report last year showed the immediate
need of a larger income. ‘To secure this, and also to diffuse and
increase the association’s influence, an increase in the membership
was indispensable. As this question of membership is of great
importance to the continued life of the association, a few facts and
figures in regard to it are worth considering. Originally planned
as a congress of delegates from local forestry associations, this body
only sought to secure members enough in each state to form the
nucleus of that local society which they were expected to found,
and no special effort was made to gain a large membership for the
parent association. Very few local societies were formed however,
and none in any way tributary to the parent body, so it became
clear that our own members could alone give us strength and in-
fluence, that we must either increase or decrease, and that our
members having decreased very considerably since a few years ago,
the tide must be turned or we should soon cease to exist at all.
Accordingly, with the copies of Mr. Schurz’s address sent in
pamphlet form to all members in November last, a circular was
also sent stating the needs of increased membership, and asking
each member to appeal to his own friends and acquaintances to join
the association, experience having shown that this could be made
the most effective means of winning new members. While a few,
especially in Massachusetts and New York, exerted themselves to
fill our ranks, the idea of each man working for the association by
constituting himself a recruiting sergeant seems to have been too
novel, and the call met with no general response. An appeal for
members and contributions, explaining the objects of the Associa-
tion, was also printed and widely distributed, partly by individual
menibers, but chiefly from the secretary’s office.

In response to the appeal and the personal solicitation of mem-
bers, over sixty new members have been added since the October
meeting, exclusive of several who joined during that meeting.
This brings our present total to 196, which would have been
greater but that twenty-three names have been struck off the rolls

16

on account of death, resignation, and continuous non-payment of
dues. ‘The number of new members may seem small, but as
hitherto there have been practically no accessions except at the
annuai meetings, it isa clear gain. It is interesting to note that
among the number are some old members who had resigned, but
who now desire to join the ranks again.

At the beginning of the year there were seventy members,
nearly half the total membership at that time, who had been
admitted to life membership some years before on payment of ten
dollars. Necessary current expenses had in the course of time ex-
hausted the sum so raised, so that the whole expense of the asso-
ciation was being borne by the eighty-five other annual members,
although many of them had paid in dues more than the life mem-
bership fee. A statement of the facts, suggesting a voluntary
relinquishment of their rights, was sent to all life members, and it
is gratifying to state that while no disapproval of the scheme has
been received from any one, fifteen of the members have resumed
payment of annual dues, while three others have become life mem-
bers on payment of fifty dollars as provided in the amendment
adopted last year. Of these new life members there are now eleven
in all, and the fund of $550 secured thereby remains intact to form
the nucleus of a permanent invested fund.

Our members are now found in twenty-nine states, one territory,
the federal district, and two provinces of Canada, as follows :

Alabama, 2; Arizona Ty., 1; California, 6; Colorado, 5; Con-
necticut, 4; Florida, 2; Georgia, 7 ; Illinois, 4 ; Indiana, 2 ; Iowa,
1; Kansas, 2; Kentucky, 3; Maine, 5; Maryland, 1 ; Massachu-
setts, 40; Michigan, 1; Minnesota, 5; Missouri, 2; Nebraska, 4 ;
New Hampshire, 2; New Jersey, 4; New York, 27; Ohio, 14;
Pennsylvania, 22 ; Rhode Island, 2; South Carolina, 4 ; Tennessee,
2; Texas, 1; Vermont, 2; Wisconsin, 1; District of Columbia, ia
Ontario, 6; Quebec, 6; In short, while our membership is small,
it is believed that there are few if any noniinal members, and if
only each individual member will bring in a few others, women as
well as men, our growth may be very rapid.

The experience of other associations clearly proves that in a body
that meets as rarely as ours, it is absolutely necessary to keep up
the interest of the members by the distribution of publications, and
at the Atlanta meeting in 1888, it was decided to subscribe to the
Pennsylvania Forestry Association’s paper, ‘‘ Forest Leaves,’’ for
all our members, so that it could be sent to them regularly. Your

17

committee have continued this subscription (which is made at a
very favorable rate) and believe it the best policy to do so, as the
paper not only brings before all our members very valuable and in-
teresting information, in regard to forestry, but also helps to keep
them in touch with the forestry movement all over the country.
Besides this it supplies a ready means of reaching an appreciative
class of readers for all matter which this Association or its members
may wish to have published.

In view of this arrangement it was thought better not to print a
pamphlet report of the last meeting (as had sometimes formerly
been done) but to have the minutes published by themselves in
Forest Leaves, and also, in successive numbers, the papers read or
presented at that meeting. A great saving of expense has been
effected thereby, and the proceedings of the meeting have been
much more widely made known than could readily have been done
otherwise.

The report of the Committee on Legislation will show what has
been done in the effort to secure a proper legal basis for national
forest preservation, but in addition thereto the general status of the
forestry movement all over the country needs a few words.

It is true, that there is as yet little that is new to be said as to
the actual treatment and condition of the forests themselves. The
old story of wasteful cutting, of the laying bare of mountain slopes
where trees are absolutely essential to hold the soil together, and
of the ravages of fire, a story with which this Association is but
too familiar, must be told again this vear. The terrible fires of
1889 will probably long remain without a parallel, but it is only a
question of degree. Without adequate protection from fire, the
loss must be serious enough every year. As to cutting, too, the
absolute divorce, which has existed in this country ever since its
settlement, between the mutually essential occupations of timber-
cutting and timber-raising, continues practically unchanged.

On the other hand, signs of an approaching change and a funda-
mental improvement in the treatment of our forests are clearer now
than ever. Your committee has been in correspondence with citi-
zens and the press all over the country, and it is undeniable that a
very general awakening to the necessity of forest preservation is
taking place, gradually indeed, but surely. The increased numbers
of this and other associations, the re-organization of the New York
Association, the formation of that in Texas, and the successful
meetings held in various places are proofs of this, nor are others

18

wanting. The press, formerly silent as to our forestry needs or
unfavorable to any reform, is now throwing more and more of its
influence in aid of the movement for forest preservation ; and in
this connection too much cannot be said of the energy and intelli-
gence with which the condition of the Adirondacks has been laid
before the public. The fact that the approaching scarcity of tim-
ber has led many owners of forest lands to hold them for higher
prices should also not be disregarded. ‘The temporary forest pre-
servation thereby effected is both a good thing in itself and a
necessary first step to proper forest management; and while the
latter is probably not yet even in contemplation, its advantages
must eventually appeal to men who have already learned to look
beyond the present moment.

The loudest cries for forest reform come from the widely separa-
ted States of New York and California. The effects of deforesta-
tion in the Adirondacks touch the manifold interests of a large
number of people so closely and so plainly that the mere reserva-
tion of some forest lands under the charge of an unpaid commission
cannot satisfy the demand for the preservation of the Adirondack
woods. ‘The existence of this demand was made evident at the
last session of the New York Legislature, and if the end in view is
steadily pursued it can hardly fail of eventual attainment. The
New York Forestry Association has its work clearly before it, and
should receive aid and encouragement from every patriotic citizen
of the State.

In California the prosperity of many fruitful valleys is dependent
on a water supply of whose regularity the existence of forests on
the mountains is the only guarantee. Axe and flame have made
serious inroads on those forests, and they are also becoming more
and more a pasture ground for sheep and cattle. The people are
awake to the dangers which threaten them, but unfortunately their
appeal for protection has to be made at Washington, and not at
San Francisco, and amid the mass of legislation constantly before
Congress it is no.easy task to make the claims of one section heard.
That a region which human industry has turned into a garden
should relapse into a wilderness through the impossibility of secur-
ing proper legislation would be a sore reproach to our boasted
American civilization. j

In conclusion, your committee can frankly say that while present
conditions are anything but satisfactory, and the prospect in many
places far from hopeful, yet, through the agency of this and other

19

associations, the need of proper forest management is being grad-
_ ually brought home to the minds of the American people. Upon
the speed with which the people are won over to the cause of forest
reform depends the nearness of the day when that great menace to
our national welfare, the waste and destruction of our forests, shall
be a thing of the past.
Respectfully submitted,
For the Executive Committee,
CuaAs. C. BINNEY, Secretary.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION.

To the Members of the American Forestry Association :—

Your Committee, elected by the Executive Committee chosen at
the Philadelphia Meeting, respectfully report as follows :—

The members of this committee being widely scattered over the
country, their conferences have been chiefly by correspondence.
On November 14th, 1889, a meeting was held at the office of the
Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, at Washington, D. C., to con-
fer with a committee of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, and other persons interested in National forest
preservation. Your committee was represented by Messrs. Ensign,
Higley and Binney. ‘There was a full discussion as to the actual
condition of the National forests, the best practical means of pre-
serving them, and the legislation that could reasonably be expected.
The same day the above members of your committee, together with
Assistant Secretary Willets, and Messrs. Fernow, Bowers and
Egleston, of your Association, waited upon the Secretary of the
Interior to express their views as to the reservation and protection
of the public forest lands. Major Powell and Colonel Hinton of
the United States Geological Survey were present.

In accordance with the understanding arrived at at these confer-
ences, an admirable memorial was prepared by the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, and transmitted by
the President of the United States to Congress on January 2oth ;
and your committee prepared a Memorial to Congress and the
House of Representatives Bill, No. 7026.—‘‘ For the reservation and
protection of forest lands on the public domain, and to establish a
commission to inquire into the condition of the said lands, and to
report a plan for their permanent management.” The Bill was intro-

20

duced in the House on February 17th, by Mr. Dunnell, of Minne-
sota, who afterwards secured the appointment by the Public Lands
Committee (to whom the Bill had been referred) of a sub-committee
on forestry legislation. ‘The Chairman of this sub-committee being —
from Pennsylvania, the Committee on Law of the Pennsylvania
Forestry Association cooperated by asking the influence of the latter
Association and the press in support of the Bill. Mr. Fernow and
others of your Association resident in Washington, and also Mr. Bin-
ney of this Committee, appeared before the sub-committee and found
its members disposed to favor a measure more similar to your Asso-
ciation’s Bill of two years ago. Messrs. Fernow and Bowers met
the sub-committee and its members repeatedly during the session.
- Since, however, the Public Lands Committee has had much im-
portant work before it, and since a thorough revision of the land
laws in all its parts is contemplated, including the present method
of disposal of timber lands, action upon this particular legislation
has been deferred until the more comprehensive plans of land legis-
lation could be digested. But the assurance is given that, early in
the next session, such a Bill for a permanent forest administration
as will meet the views of the Committee on Puclic Lands, will be
prepared by the sub-committee and laid before the House.

WILLIAM ALVORD, JOHN E. Hosss, CHARLES C. BINNEY,
ABBOT KINNEY, HERBERT WELSH, J. STERLING MORTON,
EDGAR T. ENSIGN, WARREN HIGLEY, Commtttee.

After an active discussion of the various questions raised by the
reports of the delegates and of the Committees, Mr. J. D. W. French
moved that a Special Committee be appointed ‘‘to consider the
Report of the Executive Committee, and the best means of obtain-
ing some practical results from the work of this Association.’’ This
motion was carried, and the Chair appointed Messrs. French, Fer-
now, J. X. Perrault, J. B. Harrison, P. H. Vilmorin, E. E. Taché,
Wm. Little, and Aubrey White as the Special Committee. The
Congress then adjourned until 2 Pp. M.

Afternoon Session, 2 P. M.—Mr. Joly read a paper by Mrs. 5.
W. Dodds, M. D., of St. Louis, Mo., on ‘‘ What Causes the
Cyclones.’’

Mr. B. E. Fernow read a paper on ‘‘ Forests as a National Re-
source ;’’ While he was reading, the old Huron chief, Thomas
Siouhi, entered the hall with his son, clad in full Indian costume.

oe |

When the paper was ended, the chief said, ‘‘ We are the children
of the forest, and are come to welcome the friends of the forest.
Since I was sixteen years old, the forest has been my country. I
have lived in it and I hope to die in it. We are not numerous;
we are gradually disappearing like the great trees of our woods.
Protect us and our forests, and you will have the prayers of the
Hurons and the gratitude of their hearts.’’

Mr. Taché read an official report on ‘* The Administration of the
Public Forests of the Province of Quebec.’’

‘Mr. Joly exhibited at the close of the session a fine piece of
black walnut grown from a tree planted by him at his place at
Pointe Platon fifteen years ago. He said that in making such
plantations of trees those of the highest commercial value should

be selected.

Evening Session, 8 P. M.—Colonel E. T. Ensign, Forest Com-
missioner for Colorado, read a paper on ‘‘The Rocky Mountain
Forests.’’

Dr. N. H. Egleston's paper on ‘‘ The Preservation of Small For-
ests,’’ was then read by title.

Professor Lazenby gave an interesting account of the method
adopted in Ohio of celebrating Arbor Day, and said that Ohio was
one of the first of the States to introduce into her public schools
the annual observance of Arbor Day, and that the practice of tree
planting on that day had perhaps been more generally and heartily
carried out in Ohio than in any other State.”

Mr. A. Blue stated that Arbor Day had been established by law
in the Province of Ontario, and that the Government had appro-
priated $50,000 for Arbor Day and agricultural improvements.

After some remarks by Mr. Fernow and others as to the im-
portance of endeavoring to secure an extension of the system of
Arbor Day tree planting, Mr. H. L. de Vilmorin, of Paris, France,
read by invitation a paper on the ‘‘ Forest Administration in
France.”’

Mr. Vilmorin is one of the partners in the seed house of Vilmorin
& Andrieux of Paris, of world-wide reputation, and his descrip-
tion in brief of the system of forest management in France was
listened to with deep interest.

Mr. Auguste Dupuis, of St. Roch des Aulnaies, read a paper on
‘‘ Experiments with Southern-Trees in the Far North of Quebec.”’
Mr. Dupuis brought with him a number of samples of trees
that he had planted.

ee

Messrs Fernow, Talbot, Lazenby and Bryce spoke of the work
upon which Mr. Dupuis had been engaged in terms of the warmest
approbation.

Mr. Joly followed with a paper on ‘‘Tree Planting on the
Prairies.”’

The meeting then adjourned till Thursday morning.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4th.

Morning Session, 10 A. M.—When the session opened His Ex-
cellency the Governor General, Lord Stanley of Preston, welcomed
the American Forestry Association to Canada, and expressed his
deep interest in the work of the Association.

Professor Lazenby, of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Sta-
tion, requested the members to excuse the absence of the paper he
had promised on ‘‘ Timber Planting in Ohio,’’ which had unfor-
tunately been stolen from him on his journey.

He, however, gave a brief resumé, from memory, of the main
points in this paper, and stated which varieties of trees had
been proved, by actual experiment at the Experiment Station in
Ohio, to be most useful for plantations. Of these, the ash stood
at the head of the list. He said that wagon builders in Columbus
were complaining of the dearth of proper hard wood for wagons,
particularly of hickory, and advised the planting of this and other
trees, the demand for which was steadily increasing, while the
supply steadily diminished..

Mr. J. X. Perrault, of Montreal, then read an abstract, in Eng-
lish, of a paper he had prepared on the ‘‘ Adoption of a Regular
System for the Cutting of Timber on Our Public Lands,’’ ‘‘La
Mise en Coupe réglée de nos Foréts.”’

Hon. G. Duhamel, Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Pro-
vince of Quebec, then addressed the meeting on forestry.

Afternoon Session, 2 P. M.—At the opening of the afternoon
session Sir Ambrose Shea, Governor of the Bahama Islands,
visited the meeting. Mr. Joly having spoken of the pleasure it
gave him to welcome so distinguished a guest to the Councils of
the Association, Sir Ambrose thanked his friend, Mr. Joly, for the
kind allusion to him, and speaking of recent events, expressed the
hope that reciprocity between the United States and Canada would
soon be established. Later in the afternoon the Congress received
a visit from the Prime Minister of the Province of Quebec, the

23

Hon. Mr. Mercier, who was accompanied by Mr. Daniel Dough-
erty, of Philadelphia. Mr. Mercier and Mr. Dougherty both ad-
dressed the meeting. Mr. Dougherty spoke in favor of abolishing
all trade barriers between the United States and Canada.

Mr. Fernow read a paper upon ‘‘ The Effect of Forest Mis-
management on Orchards.’’

An address was then delivered by Mr. J. B. Harrison, of New
Hampshire.

The Hon. J. K. Ward then read a paper on the ‘‘ Duties of the
Government and of Lumbermen in the Management of the Public
Forests.”’

A discussion then ensued on Mr. Ward’s scheme of fires and in-
surance.

Mr. William Little read a paper entitled: ‘‘ The Protest of the
Pine.”’

Mr. John Craig followed with a paper on ‘‘ Forestry at the Do-
minion Experimental Farms.’’

Mr. William Saunders, Director of the Central Farm, in a paper
on ‘‘ Forestry on the Western Plains of Canada,’’ further described
the practical work done by the Dominion in the way of tree
planting on the barren prairies.

Evening Session, 8 P. M.—Mr. Joly presented specimens taken
from badly pruned trees, and spoke of the importance of pruning
branches away close to the stem and making clean vertical cuts..
He also distributed to the members of the Association some copies
of Professor Sargent’s edition of Count des Cars’ work on ‘Tree
Pruning.’’ (These were the gift of the Massachusetts Society for
the Promotion of Agriculture. )

The chairman then read a note from the Governor of Texas in-
viting the American Forestry Association to hold their next meet-
ing in the State of Texas; referred to the Executive Committee.
The report of the special committee which had been appointed
“To consider the report of the Executive Committee, and the best
means of securing some practical result from the work of the Asso-
ciation,’’ was then read by the chairman of the special committee,
Mr. J. X. Perrault.

The following is the Report :-—

‘“His Honor the Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Que-
bec having suggested that this Association should propose such
measures as they think advisable in order to secure the preserva-
tion and permanence of the forestry domains of the Province, the

24

American Forestry Association recommends: That the working
of the timber limits should be so regulated that while the largest
amount of timber may be cut which the virgin forest affords, this
be not done without proper provision for a recuperation of the
timber crop, or protection against fire, cattle, and other agencies
injurious to the continuance of forest growth.

‘The Association recognizes the fact that it is not in its power
to devise the methods by which such recuperative reproduction
may be attained, applicable to all the different conditions, political,
administrative and forestal, which may prevail in the Province,
but it would respectfully state some facts and principles which
must be understood in order to inaugurate a forest policy superior
to that now in existence.

‘It wouid appear that without a special investigation of exist-
ing conditions, with a view of applying forestry principles in their
management, such changes, with the present system, could not be
attained.

‘‘It is contrary to the public interest of any country, that lands
which are covered with forest-and have little or no agricultural
value, should be opened for settlement or alienated by the State,
but such lands should be kept in forest and carefully pre-
served from destruction by the ravage of fire, or by settlement.
The methods by which the management and reservation may be
effected are various and must be adapted to local conditions ; but,
whatever methods are employed, it is necessary to have an effi-
cient and well-trained corps of officers conversant with the princi-
ples of forestry.

‘“The recuperation of a national forest is not effected by a sim-
ple utilization of the ripe timber and superior kinds of trees, and
by leaving the remaining growth to itself. It can be econo-
mically and satisfactorily attained only by a wisely directed
cutting which keeps ia view the re-seeding of the original growth
or of more valuable kinds.

‘‘ The protection of forests against fire and cattle is naturally of
the first importance, and cannot be effected by legislation alone
without devising the proper machinery to carry out the law. In
regard to fire legislation, preventive measures are of more use than
curative. Hence, all methods of cutting timber, such as the hew-
ing of logs in the forest, by which inflammable material is accumu-
lated in the forest, such should be discouraged.

‘It must be recognized that the present methods of lumbering

25

take no consideration of the future of the resource upon which the
lumber business is based, and any regulations that are adopted
should promote such a change of methods as will secure continued
forest growth upon the forest reserves. These regulations, along
with legislation for the protection of the forest against fire and
- theft, will comprise perhaps all the forest administration that is at
present practicable.

“Tt will be advisable to encourage young men to study forestry
at one of the forestry schools of Europe, so that gradually a corps
of forestry officers may grow up, capable of applying the more re-
fined principles of forest management, when the time for such has
arrived.”’ =

The report also submitted the following resolutions :—

I. Regarding the State Board of Forestry of California.

WHEREAS, The State of California has had, for some years
past, a State Board of Forestry, charged with the forestry interests
of that State in general, and with the protection of the timber lands
of said State agaifist fire and depredation, especially disseminating,
at the same time useful information in their reports, and

WHEREAS, It has been suggested that political considerations
may lead to a discontinuance of said board, or to such a reduction
of the appropriations provided for such board, as must necessarily
hamper its work and curtail its usefulness—

Resolved, that the Council and members of the American For-
estry Association, in meeting assembled at Quebec, view with
alarm the possible occurrence of such a contingency, rooting out,
as it were, the first germ of a rational forest policy, which the State
of California had wisely planted, and cannot without detriment to
its agricultural interests afford to discontinue.

While, then, there is no personal connection between the mem-
bers of the Forestry Board and the members of this Association,
which is concerned in this matter only from its general interest in
proper forest preservation, and while this Association does not de-
sire to pass judgment in regard to the efficiency or inefficiency of the
work of said Board, we earnestly hope and pray that any discon-
tinuance or limitation in the functions of such Board, if contempla-
ted, will find the vigorous opposition of every fair-minded legislator,
and that efforts for an extension and increase of efficiency in this
first and foremost American forest administration will alone
meet with success.

Resolved, that a copy of these expressions of interest in the for-

26

est policy of the State of California, be forwarded to the Governor
and Legislature of the State of California:

Il. Regarding the Big Trees of Tulare County, California.

Resolved, that the American Forestry Association, being ad-
vised that the last grove of big trees in Tulare county is in danger,
under the regular working of the land laws, of being turned over
to private parties, respectfully submit to the Honorable Secretary
of the Interior, that the value of these Sequoias, for their grandeur
and their beauty, is much greater than it can be for lumber, and that
their preservation as a monument of natural history is of national
concern.

Resolved, that the American Forestry Association therefore urge
the Honorable Secretary to use such power as is at his command
to withhold from entry such grove or groves as are still in the
possession of the general government, until proper legislation for
the permanent reservation of the same can be enacted by Congress.

Ill. Regarding Model Farms.

Fesolved, that in the attempts made to encourage agriculture by
offering prizes for model farms, the importance of the woodlands
necessary on every farm (deserving to be considered a model farm)
for the supply of fuel and lumber, as well as for shelter and orna-
ment, ought not to be overlooked, and that the state of the wood-
land should receive, in these competitions, all the attention that it
deserves.

IV. Resolved, that the thanks of the American Forestry Asso-
ciation are hereby presented to His Honor the Lieutenant Gov-
ernor and other officials of the Province of Quebec, and also to the
city authorities, for the courtesies extended to its members, and
for their promotion of the objects of the association, and

V. Resolved, that the thanks of the American Forestry Asso-
ciation be presented to the Reception Committee and to the citizens
of Quebec, for the hospitalities so courteously granted.

The report of the Committee and the resolutions therein con-
tained, were unanimously adopted.

The Hon. J. K. Ward then read a paper entitled ‘‘ Reminis-
cences of the Lumber Trade of Canada.’’ He said that about
fifty-two million acres of timber land were held by the Dominion
Government under the license system, and estimated that the sup-
ply of lumber would last thirty-seven years at the present rate
of cut.

Dr. Peter H. Bryce then presented a paper on “‘ Forests in their
Relation to Health.”’

27

It was moved and seconded that a vote of thanks be given to
Dr. Bryce for his interesting paper ; carried.

Mr. George Moore read a paper on ‘‘Shade and Ornamental
Trees in Cities.”’

Papers by Mr. H. B. Ayres, of Minnesota, entitled ‘‘ Minnesota
Woodsmen,’’ and by Mr. J. C. Chapais, on ‘‘ Forest Preserva-
tion and Restoration,’’ were read by title.

On motion of Mr. J. D. W. French, of Massachusetts, the Re-
port of the Executive Committee was adopted, and the question
of the publication of a report of the meeting referred to that com-
mittee.

A letter from Mr. W. A. Stiles, Editor of Garden and Forest,
asking the Forestry Association to interfere for the protection of
the big trees in Tulare County, California, was read. (See recom-
mendation embodied in Special Committee’s Report.)

A letter from Colonel Thomas T. Wright, of Nashville, to the
President, suggesting the desirability of enlisting the support of
the women of the country in the cause of Forestry, and forming
an Association of Daughters of Forestry, and also of holding a
meeting in Chicago during the season when the World’s Fair was
in progress, was read, but no action was taken thereon.

It was moved that a vote of thanks be tendered to the Hon. H.
G. Joly for his unselfish devotion to the interests of the Associa-
tion during all its sessions in Quebec, and for his unwearied kind-
ness and courtesy.

Professor W. R. Lazenby, Mr. Fernow, and General James
Grant Wilson all warmly seconded the motion. Carried.

The meeting then adjourned to meet again at the call of the
Executive Committee.

Numerous courtesies were extended to the members of the
American Forestry Association, during their stay in Quebec. On
Tuesday afternoon, September 2d, Mr. J. M. Le Moine took a
number of the delegates to the Laval University, and showed
them the interesting natural history collections and the picture
gallery. On Friday, September 6th, the members of the American
Forestry Association and the members of the Alpine Club of
France were taken on board the steamer ‘‘ Druid’’ (placed at their
disposal by the Dominion Government), and proceeded down the
St. Lawrence to the Island of Orleans, paying a visit to the Church
of St. Anne, to which pilgrimages are made, and were hospitably
entertained on board by the Corporation of the City of Quebec.

28

Before parting, the members met once more to plant on the
Parliament grounds two hickory trees from General Andrew
Jackson's place, which had been sent from Tennessee by Col. Thos.
T. Wright, with the request that one of the trees should be planted
in honor of Lord Dufferin, late Governor-General of Canada.
The other tree was planted in honor of Mrs. B. E. Fernow, in
acknowledgment of the great services rendered by her husband to

the cause of Forestry in America.
HENRY M. FISHER,

Acting Secretary.
ANNUAL MEETING,
HELD IN WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 30TH, 1890.

Morning Session. 'The Association met at the Department of
Agriculture at 10 A. M.

Members were present from the following States :

Colorado. George H. Parsons ;

Connecticut. Dr. B. G. Northrop ;

Massachusetts, Thomas H. Appleton, J. D. W. French, N. T.
Kidder ;

New York. Hon. Warren Higley, Hon. John A. King,
Henry E, Pellew ;

Pennsylvania. Charles C. Binney, Rev. Alfred L. Elwyn, J.
Rodman Paul, Gifford Pinchot ;

South Carolina. Prof. H. A. Green;

Vermont. Won. Joseph Battell ;

District of Columbia. H. B. Ayres, Edward A. Bowers, Dr.
N. H. Egleston, B. E. Fernow, Hon. Edwin Willets, Assistant
Secretary of Agriculture.

In the absence of Gov. Beaver, President, Dr. B. G. Northrop,
one of the Vice-Presidents, presided.

Letters from Gov. Beaver, Hon. H. G. Joly, of Quebec, and
Hon. G. W. Allan, of Toronto, regretting their inability to be
present and expressing their great interest in the Association,
were read.

The minutes of the summer meeting of the Association at Que-
bec were read in part, when, on motion, their further reading was
dispensed with.

A comunittee om resolutions and the nomination of officers, con-
sisting of Messrs. French, Parsons and Green, was appointed.

Most of those present not having attended the Quebec meeting,

29

the Report of the Executive Committee, presented at that meeting,
was read by Mr Binney, and followed by a supplemental report.

SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE !/COMMITTEE.

To the Members of the American Forestry Association :

Since the report presented at the Quebec meeting was written,
there have been thirty accessions to our numbers, which now reach
225, distributed through thirty states, one territory, the District of
Columbia, and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The Asso-
ciation has sustained a serious loss in the death, on Sept. 30th, of
Hon. Frederick R. Billings of New York and Woodstock, Vt., a
valued member for several years past.

To look back nearly nine years, to the formation of this associa-
tion at Cincinnati in April 1882, is not at first a cheering retro-
spect. The need of state and national legislation for forest pro-
tection and management was so clear that had any one then
said that by the end of 1890 the state of New York alone would
have even the beginning of a system of forest preservation, he
would have been thought most despondent. Yet after all these
years of work for forest reform we seem to stand just where we did
in 1882, while the evils confronting us have intensified. In reality
however, our position is very much stronger than it was then, for
the people are gradually coming over to our side. In 1882, the
American people as a whole cared little for forest preservation,
either for economic reasons or as a matter of taste or sentiment.
In 1890 it is undeniable that they are becoming concerned about
the timber supply, as the changed tone of the lumber trade jour-
nals and the press in general clearly proves. It is felt that some-
thing more is needed for permanent lumbering than merely to cut
down all the trees in sight, and that there must be some change
from the old ways; hence practical suggestions in the way of for-
estry are listened to and quoted, even if not as yet to any great
extent followed. There is an increased sentiment in the matter,
too, which is worth something, since every human being is swayed
by sentiment and taste, far more, usually, than he is aware of.
Despite the intensely practical nature of the American people, the
love of flowers, purely a matter of taste and sentiment, has grown
immensely in this country of late years. From flowers to trees is
but a step, and a most natural one, which many people have taken.
And as it is with floriculture, so it is with the more practical agri-

30

culture. How much a farmer cares for forest depends upon how
intelligently he cares for his farm, and when once the whole Amer-
ican people, the practical as well as those of taste and sentiment,
shall thoroughly and sincerely care for trees and forests, the for-
estry problem will be easy of solution, for then will be enlisted on
the side of forestry that will which is sure to find a way.

A most valuable agency in this direction is ‘‘ Garden and Forest,”
now completing its third year. ‘Treating all matters of the garden
most ably and thoroughly, it has also been steadily sowing the
seeds of forestry in ground already fertilized by a lively interest in
horticulture. It is clearly hastening the day when the interests
of the garden and the farm will demand forest preservation and
management as essential to their own prosperity.

The meeting at Quebec, Sept. 2nd to 5th, was, owing to the
distance, attended by few of our members except those living in
Canada, but those who went learned something of the sincere and
practical efforts now made in Canada to prevent fire and induce
reforestation. The interest and encouragement due to the atmos-
phere of veal forestry demonstrated the wisdom of accepting the
courteous invitation of the Quebec authorities.

In New England apparently the most important work of the
year is that of the forest commission of New Hampshire which has
been carefully investigating the forest lands of that state in order
to ascertain the tracts which most need preservation and the most
practical means of effecting this. Their report written by Mr. J.
B. Harrison, in 1889 the corresponding secretary of this associa-
tion, will soon appear and it is hoped that the legislature will take
effectual steps to prevent that beautiful, health-giving forest region,
the resort every summer of so many thousands from all parts of
our country, from being turned into a bare, uninteresting waste.

In New York the commission appointed by authority of the last
legislature has been investigating the Adirondack region with a
view to securing a large state park, so as to preserve to some
extent the forests of that attractive region and protect the sources
of the Hudson. <A bill providing for such reservation has been
prepared after careful deliberation and wiil be presented to the leg-
islature a few days hence. While a few railroad and lumbering
interests may be arrayed against it, the necessity for its passage is
so clear that in may be looked forward to with some confidence,
provided the friends of the measure are active. No good law was
ever yet passed without a struggle, and laws for forest reform will
be no exception to the rule.

31

The organization of the Adirondack League Club, owning 93,-
ooo acres of forest in Hamilton and Herkimer Counties in the
southwestern part of the Adirondack region is important as consti-
tuting the first attempt at permanent forest management in this
country on any large scale. The Club intends to treat its property
not only as a summer resort and hunting ground, but as a tree farm,
having the ripe timber cut and sold, but so as to make way for the
new growth, and not to leave the ground either wholly bare or so
littered over with waste stuff as almost to invite the fire to sweep
through and destroy the life of the soil. It is no flattery to the
projectors of this club to say that they will do more for forest
reform than many associations such as ours. We represent precept,
they example, and when once they make an ocular demonstration
that there is money to be made by systematic forestry, the idea will
take root and spread as it has never done before. And whatever
be the success of the club it will be due in great part to the work
of this association. Several of the stockholders are our own
members, and what they will carry out in practice is simply that
principle of forest management the idea of which this association
has fostered and kept alive year after year in spite of delay and
opposition until now the fruits of the work begin to be seen.

In national forest preservation, the year has not been as fruitful
as was expected, but yet not wholly barren. The tariff bill, the
pension bill, the silver bill, the elections bill have found many and
eager advocates, but a practical forest law is less loudly and persis-
tently demanded. Still, the extension of the Yosemite Park and
the reservation of the Seguoza tract of 3500 acres in Tulare County,
Cal., are something. The latter made the Quebec resolution in
part unnecessary, but as the greater number of the Sequoia are
outside the reservation, this important fact was communicated to
the Secretary of the Interior along with the resolution.

The increased appropriation to the Forestry Division will enable
it to continue the experiments and investigation as to forestry and
rain-fall, and the collection and distribution of valuable seeds and
plants.

The Quebec report of the committee on legislation may be sup-
plemented by saying that no forestry bill has yet been reported to
the House, and that this Congress is nearing its end. Should a
determined effort be made, it might even now be possible to have a
bill to provide the beginnings of a forestry system reported and
passed, but this is not likely. In any case, though, the attempt to
secure it must be renewed and kept up. This Association has two

32

immediate objects in view by means of which ultimately to
secure forest preservation—education, leading the public mind to
see the necessities of the situation; and legislation, establishing
proper methods of dealing with the situation. It would be almost
as fatal to abandon the fight on the second line as on the first.

To further build up the Association and continue its work, the
constitution should be so changed as to allow of additional members
of the executive committee, who should be elected from among the
members resident in Washington, so that the committe could meet
there regularly. There might also be a sub-committee on publi-
cation and membership, a quorum of which should reside in one
place. By proper system and division of labor the work would
not fall too heavily on any one, and the power of the Association
be greatly increased.

Respectfully submitted,
For the Executive Committee,
; CHARLES C. BINNEY, Secretary.

The Treasurer submitted the following report :

HENRY M. FISHER, TREASURER,

in account with

The American Forestry Association.

1889 Dr.

Oct. 15 Balance as per account rendered, . : ‘ $2 52
1890

Dec. 30 To Receipts from Annual Dues, ‘ 3
“ TLafe Membership Dues, 0) Sa
c ‘“ Contributions, . . “ae
- ‘* Interest on Deposits, ; s : : IO 13
3 ‘“ Cash for the Sale of Pamphlets, : , 2 OF
$1070 02

Cr.
1890 By Cash, Stationery and Postage, : . $124 67
Dec. 30 Printing and ‘Type- -Writing . hee
i oe Advertising, . 18 60
ee 3 Traveling Expenses of Secretary, : 12 45
Expressage and Telegrams, . i 3 30
* = Subscription to Forest Leaves, . “T1008
Balance to credit of Current Expense Acc. 136 20
‘* Life Membership Fund, 550 00

$1070 02

33

Messrs. Binney and Pinchot were on motion, appointed a com-
mittee to audit the Treasurer’s account.

Dr. Northrop made a report from the Committee on Arbor Day
in schools, which was very encouraging, showing that Arbor Day
is now observed by schools in thirty-seven States.

By invitation Judge Higley reported upon the prospect of forest
improvement in the State of New York, referring especially to the
movement of the Adirondack Park Association, composed largely
of business men, which proposes to have the State set aside 3,000, -
ooo acres of Adirondack forest land and place them under proper
forest administration. He also spoke of the work just begun by
the Adirondack League Club, a company of private citizens who
have purchased 100,000 acres of forest which they propose to
maintain in its forest condition as a pleasure resort, while also so
managing it as to make it a source of income from the sale of
timber as it is ready for market.

At 12.30 o’clock a recess was taken until 2’clock.

At the opening of the afternoon session the Committee on Nom-
inations and Resolutions reported a proposed amendment of the
constitution so that Article 4 shall read as follows, viz :—

“The officers of this Association to be elected at the annual
meeting shall be a President, one Vice-President for each State,
territory, and province represented in the Association, a Treasurer,
a Recording Secretary, a Corresponding Secretary, and an Exec-
utive Committee consisting of these officers and six other mem-
bers. ‘Three of this committee shall constitute a quorum. This
committee shall choose its own chairman.’’

The proposed amendment was adopted.

The Committee then reported a nomination of officers as follows :

President.—Wm. Alvord of California. V2ce-Presidents.—Que-
bec, Hon. H. G. Joly; Alabama, Dr. Chas. Mohr; Arizona, D.
M. Riordan; Colorado, Geo. H. Parsons; Connecticut, Dr. B.
G. Northrop ; District of Columbia, Hon. Edwin Willets ; Georgia,
Hon. C. R. Pringle; Illinois, Geo. W. Minier; Iowa, C. L. Wat-
rous; Kansas, Prof. E. A. Popenoe; Maine, Jno. E. Hobbs;
Massachusetts, J. D. W. French; Michigan, Prof. J. W. Beal -
Minnesota, Hon. C. C. Andrews; Nebraska, R. W. Furnas;
New Hampshire, J. B. Harrison; New Jersey, W. A. Stiles;
New York, Morris K. Jesup; Ohio, Prof. W. R. Lazenby ; Onta-
rio, Hon. G. W. Allan; Pennsylvania, Herbert Welsh; Rhode
Island, L. D. Davis; South Carolina; Prof. H. A. Green; South

34
Dakota, Prof. C. A. Keffer; Tennessee, Col. T. T. Wright ; Texas,
W.G. Jones; Vermont, Dr. H. A. Cutting; Wisconsin, H. C.
Putnam. Treasurer.—Dr. H. M. Fisher, Philadelphia, Pa.
Recording Secretary.—N. H. Egleston, Washington, D. C. Cor
responding Secretary.—K. A. Bowers, Washington, D. C.

Additional members of Executive Committee :—B. E. Fernow,
H. B. Ayres, E. T. Ensign, H: E. Pellew, Warren Higley, C. C.
Binney.

The officers nominated were elected.

Informal reports as to the condition of forestal interests in sev-
eral States were then made by Prof. Green of South Carolina, Mr.
Appleton of Massachusetts, and Mr. Paul of Pennsylvania, which
were followed by remarks from various members.

An invitation from Colorado to hold the next meeting of the
Association in that State was received with thanks, and the decis-
ion as to its acceptance was referred to the Executive Committee.

The Association then took a recess until 7.45 o’clock Pp. M.

EVENING SESSION.

The Association met at the designated time, at the National
Museum, in joint session with the American Economic Associa-
tion.

Vice-President Willets called the Association to order and made
a brief address.

The Committee on Nominations and Resolutions then reported

the following resolutions : ;

1. Resolved, that immediate steps should be taken to reserve
from sale and entry the forest lands now under national and State
control, and to so preserve and administer them as to make them
a source of permanent income to the governments, and especially
that the sub-committee of the Public Lands Committee of the
House of Representatives, appointed to consider forestry measures,
be earnestly requested to report favorably a bill for the reservation,
protection and management of the forests on the public lands of the
United States.

2. Resolved, that permission should not be granted by the
United States Government for the construction of any railroad in the
Yellowstone National Park ; and that besides the passage of the
necessary laws for the government of the said park, including the
adequate punishment of offenders, the boundaries should be

a
extended so as to include adjacent forest lands, and should be
more definitely marked.

3. Resolved, that this Association heartily approves of the
request made by the Secretary of the Interior to the Secretary of
War for two companies of cavalry to protect the Yosemite and Se-
quoia Parks, and respectfully urges the Secretary of War to grant
this request.

The Association also urges upon Congress the desirability of
farther extending such reservations as that lately made in Tulare
County, and the need of extending the boundaries of Yosemite
Valley Park.

4. Resolved, that the present efforts for forest administration
and preservation in the Adirondack forests in New York and in
the White Mountain regions of New Hampshire, both by the
States, by Associations, and by individuals, deserve the earnest
encouragement of the American Forestry Association, and that
the members resident in those States be urged to co-operate with
the Adirondack Park Association and the New Hampshire Forest
Commission is securing the legislation needed.

5. Resolved, that this Association heartily advocates the estab-
lishment of forest parks by cities and towns, and especially com-
mends the donation of such parks by private citizens to public
uses, regarding them as important agents in promoting public
interest in forest preservation as well as public health.

The Resolutions reported by the Committee were unanimously
adopted.

Papers were then read by Edward A. Bowers, Esq., on ‘‘ The
Present Condition of Forests on the Public Lands,’’ by Gifford
Pinchot, Esq., on ‘‘ Government Forestry Abroad,’’ and by B. E.
Fernow, Esq., on ‘‘ The Feasibility of American Forest Adminis-
tration.’’*

The Association then adjourned sine die.

N. H. Ecieston, Recording Secretary.

*These three papers will appear in a monograzh on forestry, to be pablished
by the American Economic Association. Copies can be obtained of the Sec-
retary of the American Forestry Association.

Papers read at the Summer Meeting. *

THE FOREST AS A NATIONAL RESOURCE,

BERNHARD E. FERNOW, CHIEF OF THE FORESTRY DIVISION,
WASHINGTON, D. C.

In a paper which I read before this association last year, I classi-
fied the natural resources which serve the material progress of nations,
with reference to the position which the nation as a whole ought to
take towards them. I endeavored to show that the most prominent
functions of government in regard to these resources are or ought
to be providentiai in their nature ; that the state being in its very
conception an institution to insure not only the present, but the
future and continued welfare of the community, must have an
interest in the permanence and proper utilization of natural resources,
upon which this welfare rests.

To restate briefly the classification, we found two principal
classes, namely :

(a) Resources which yield directly the necessaries or conveniences
of life and form objects of industrial activity ;

(6) Resources which serve indirectly the comforts of society, in-
dustry, and progress of civilization, and do not form objects of
industrial activity.

It isthe former class of resources mainly, which, if left to indi-
vidual control, are most apt to deteriorate and in regard to which
the interests of the individual and the community are most fre-
quently at variance, and it is most difficult to find the proper
balance between permissible freedom of individual disposal and
necessary restriction by communal interest. In regard to the second
class of resources, such as air, light, waterways, etc., the provi-
dential function of the state is much better understood and conceded,
although even here the /azssez-faire idiosynscrasists would give to
individualism the widest latitude.

The resources which form objects of industrial activity were
again divided, with reference to their continuity, into

1. Resources exhaustable and not restorable ;

*The Publication Committee regret that two or three of the papers read have neyer
come into their hands.
( 36 )

37

2. Resources restorable, but liable to deterioration under increased
activity ;

3. Resources restorable and apt to yield increased returns to in-
creased activity.

To intelligently define the position which the state should take
in the matter of protecting its resources against too rapid exhaus-
tion or unnecessary deterioration, we must keep always in view the
implied interest of the state in the future, and understand the na-
ture of the resource, with reference to its future. In this paper it
is proposed to define the proper position of the state towards its
forest resources, and for this purpose to investigate the nature of
these resources.

It is questionable whether the forest itself may be considered a
resource. It is in reality a crop, a product of the soil; and the
soil with its fertility is the resource proper, which can be turned to
this use or toany other. The forest primeval is nothing but a func-
tion of the fertility of the soil. As soon as the soil is not needed
for other purposes more useful, this product of the soil may be vai-
uable, and with means of transportation to a distant market, or as
far as a home market exists, it may constitute a resource. As soon
as with increasing population and hence demand for food-producing
areas the occupation of the soil by wood-growth is a hindrance to
its agricultural use; (and by this antagonism the value of the forest
resource is apt to depreciate in proportion to the need for food areas)
the wood product may become the opposite of valuable by necessi-
tating its removal without a market for its disposal ; hence the
burning log-pile of the pioneer settler, fed by the most valuable
timbers. The need for cleared lands tends to diminish the occu-
pation of the soil by wood-growth, until at last an equilibrium
results, when the needs of food areas are satisfied and the require-
ments of wood material make a reservation of soil for forest growth
desirable. When at last the stores of the virgin forest are exhausted
and it becomes necessary to apply human ingenuity and manage-
ment to the production of desirable quantities and qualities of wood
material on a confined area, a new industry, forestry or forest
management, arises, which exercises itself, like agriculture, upon
the production of values from the soil.

So long, then, as the virgin forest is not placed under manage-
ment, its stores represent the resource itself, and, being worked
somewhat similarly to mines, it isan exhaustible resource, differing,
however, from mines in its capacity of being reproducible. As

38

long as the activity in working the forest is simply directed towards
the extraction of the valuable material which nature has stored up
for centuries, every increase in this activity means corresponding
depreciation and depletion of the resource. As soon as the forest
becomes an object of scientific management, and artificial forest
planting is resorted to, it is the soil and its fertility which is the
actual resource, the tree-growth being a product of the same; and
then we may range it under the third class of resources, which
_yield increased returns to an intelligent increased activity, this
activity being exercised not, in the direction of utilization but of
reproduction.

While the virgin forest is worked, as it is in the United States
and Canada, simply taking out the material wanted without any
regard to its continuance, it represents, as has been stated, almost
like a mine, an exhaustible resource ; for although reproduction is
possible, and in reality occurs, under these reckless methods of
utilization, not only is the reproduction very partial, but where the
better kinds of timber are culled the reproduction can only be of
inferior kinds, and the quality of the resource is therefore reduced.
In addition to the irrational method of utilization, which tends to
deteriorate the resource, the disastrous fires which overrun the
forest areas of the United States annually destroy the accumulated
leaf-mould of centuries, thus reducing the fertility, killing the
young growth, and especially on the hillsides and mountain
slopes where, by the baring of the ground the beating rains
are allowed to wash off the soil, making reforestation almost
impossible, so that in the end the resouree—whether the growth be
considered as such or only the soil and its fertility, is exhausted.

But besides furnishing directly wood and incidentally other val-
uable products, which either as raw material or in manufactured
form supply a large number of human wants, the forest at the same
time by its functions in the circulation of air and water exercises an
influence upon cultural, climatic, and sanitary conditions, which
classes it to that extent with those resources, which, like air and
water itself, are, though indirectly yet most indispensably connected
with material and cultural progress, and are of the greatest interest
to the nation; so that in considering the position of the state
towards forests and forestry, we will have to keep in view these two
aspects of the forest—its material value and its cultural function.

The value of any material resource is measured, in the first
place, by its comparative abundance. Other factors which enter

39

into the valuation are the demand for it, the ease with which it can
be obtained and brought to centers of consumption, the possibility
and ease of reproduction, and its necessity for our present civiliza-
tion or more or less easy replacement by other materials may also
influence the valuation.

1.—TIHE FOREST AS A PRODUCER OF MATERIAL.

As regards the natural reproduction and the consequent abundance
of the virgin forest, if may be said that the whole earth is a poten-
tial forest. That is to say, with the exception of a comparatively
small area—in elevation above timber-line, in north and southward
distribution beyond eternal frost line, in continental distribution
within rainless deserts and soilless rocks—tree growth would
ultimately prevail on the entire land surface, provided the interfer-
ence of animal or human life were checked.

This interference, however, has reduced the forest area in all
parts of the world. It has, no doubt, been largely instrumental
in creating the vast prairie regions and treeless plains which are
found on every continent, and which, but for the continued inter-
ference, would gradually, at least within geologic ages, reclothe
themselves with tree-growth, with few exceptions. If originally
the land area represented an almost uninterruptrd forest area, ani-
mal and human activity has changed the face of the earth consid-
erably. This change has taken place partly to satisfy the needs
of increasing masses of population for food areas, partly without
such need, by reckless destruction; so that density of population
cannot alone account for present distribution of forest areas, but
the historic development of the people, their progress in civilization
or relapse into comparative barbarism, and the natural conditions of
the countries have had a bearing.

Thus, while Norway and Sweden, with scanty population,
showed until recently, when an active export business of wood
reduced their forest areas,a large proportion of woodland; in Spain
and Greece, although the population diminished with the decline
of culture, reforestation has not increased in proportion, and we
find a small forest area together with scanty population. In Ger-
maty, economic development and early recognition of the value of
the resource, and the necessity for its rational use and management,
has preserved a proportionately large area. In the United States
the proportion of forest area to population since its settlement by

40

European races has rapidly declined. Here almost one-half of the
continent had by adverse climatic conditions, supplemented prob-
ably by the destructive agencies of beast and man of earlier civil-
ization, been deprived of its tree-cover. To such an extent has
human activity reduced forest areas that in those countries where
it has been most active the proportions have dwindled down to
even three per cent. of the land area.. Taking Europe altogether,
not much over thirty per cent., or two and a half acres per capita,
remains in forest, and in the United States the forest area represents
probably not more than twenty-five per cent., or seven acres per
capita of population.

The demand for forest products is perhaps nowhere greater than —
in the United States, probably not less than six to eight times as
large as in Europe.

In Germany, with a population at least twelve times as dense as
the United States—and hence the need of strict economy with all
exhaustible resources—the annual consumption per capita may be
set at about 45 cubic feet. ‘The annual production of the well-
managed forest areas of Germany is found to average 55 cubic feet
of wood per acre ; there should, therefore, be 0.8 acres per capita,
which very nearly is the case, (0.79 acres), the small deficiency
being made up by imports, the excess of imports over exports
being about 60 million cubic feet. In the United States we use
simply the accumulation of material through centuries in the vir-
gin forest, the second growth furnishing but a small part, and of
management for reproduction or increased yield there is as yet no
sign.

In the virgin forest the product per acre varies to such an extent
that it would be impossible to make even a reasonable guess as to
available supplies ; some of the pine forests of the South may cut
no more than 200 or 390 cubic feet, while some areas on the
Pacific Coast may yield 15 to 20,000 feet and more. If we apply
the experience of Germany as to possible annual wood production
per acre, we will find that our present forest area, if properly
stocked and well managed, would suffice to furnish our present
demand of 20 to 25 billion cubic feet. But we know that the pre-
mises do not exist. The manner of utilizing the product has also
much to do in calculating the efficiency of the producing area.
While, for instance, in the forest management of various German
States the percentage of entire wood material may be said to be
utilized in some shape or other ; in the United States a very large

41

part is not utilized at all and left in the woods ; and while in the
German forests from 40 to 65 per cent. appears as building timber,
we learn that less than 30 per cent. is the yield from the red woods
of the Pacific Coast; and, take it all through, it is doubtful
whether more than 25 per cent. of the actual wood in a tree is util-
ized in the United States.

In comparing supplies and demand, it would be a mistake to
place reliance on calculations of the wood accretion upon the areas
under forest cover, for it is quality of material that is demanded,
and not mere quantity. Not only do areas differ in their wood-
producing capacities according to climatic and soil conditions, but
their composition as to kinds of trees and quality of timber deter-
mines their value. Thus, while the area of forest in the United
States probably does not diminish now at as rapid a rate as it used
to, the value of the remaining area is very rapidly depreciated, not
only by removing the accumulated supplies, but by culling the
best and leaving the inferior material, by neglecting to give atten-
tion to the reproduction of the better kinds, or even by recurring
fires destroying the capacity for such reproduction.

The forest furnishes firewood, building timber and raw material
for the arts.

In the United States more than three-fifths of the population
uses wood exclusively for fuel, and to show the value and appre-
ciation of this class of fuel in comparison with substitutes, it may
be mentioned that in Germany during 75 years from the beginning
of the century the price of coal has constantly sunk, while that of
charcoal has constantly increased; showing that the substitute
not only did not displace, but did not even affect the valuation of
wood as fuel. The bulkiness of the material when compared with
its heating power is objectionable, but other qualities make it
desirable.

For building purposes, although stone, iron and other materials
are used more and more, the ease of shaping wood material, the
rapidity with which it can be handled, and various other qualities,
will insure the use of wood for that purpose for all time. In the
arts the same qualities make the use of wood desirable; and while
substitutes in many cases are even preferable, in others the neces-
sity for using them would entail grave inconveniences. The value
of sawed wood material in the United States is calculated as round
one billion dollars, representing an enormous amount of material.
One of the drawbacks of the material is that it is comparatively

42

bulky, and hence it is desirable not to have to transport it too
far, especially overland, but to produce it near the centres of con-
sumption. In the United States, with many thousands of acres of
virgin timber to draw upon, the price for lumber represents hardly
more than the expense of getting it out and transporting it, the
material itself not representing as yet any cost of production.

II. THE ForREST AS A CONDITION OF CULTURE.

The value of forest areas in influencing climatic soil and water
conditions has been generally recognized only during the last,
hundred years.

While there exists, no doubt, under given conditions, a relation
between forest-cover and climate, all generalizations in this respect
must be taken with caution, until more proof and exact data is
brought by scientific methods. Climatic conditions are, in the
first place, due to cosmic and terrestrial influences. Of the terres-
trial influences we know mountain ranges and water surfaces to be
powerful. There is reason to believe, and some definite meas-
urements sustain the belief, that as far as forest-cover interferes
with insulation of the earth and the movement of air currents
it renders the climatic conditions within its own borders different
from what they would be were the forest-cover removed. ‘The doubt
can exist only as to whether and to what extent this difference
can make itself felt outside of the forest. "The claims are, that a
forest-cover tempers like a water surface, and, to some extent, in-
tercepts or reduces the force of hot and cold winds with all the
consequence of such action ; further, that it influences, if not the
amount, yet in local and temporal distribution the precipitation of
rain and snow, besides exerting various minor influences.

Whatever the truth—and neither the claimants nor the objectors
to forest climatic influences have brought incontrovertible proof—
it is evident that the extent, composition and location of the forest
must have much significance in the matter, and also that the rela-
tion of the country towards other climatic influencs must either
increase or decrease the significance of this factor as a climatic
element. In England, under powerful terrestrial tempering influ-
ences, any forest influence would be inappreciable by comparison ;
poor thirsty Spain, on the contrary, deprived by its situation of
the effects of modifying ocean currents, might possibly modify the
extremes of temperature under which it suffers by extensive forest

43

areas, which it lacks. While our own North Pacific coast, if
stripped of her wonderful forest wealth, would not be appreciably
deprived of its abundant rainfall brought by the ocean currents ;
properly disposed timber-belts in our arid and sub-arid interior
might, if they did not increase precipitation, at least check the
excessive evaporation under which it suffers from incessant and un-
checked winds. The cool and humid forest-cover situated on the
slope toward the moisture-bearing winds may unnecessarily in-
crease the tendency to condensation to which the currents by their
mere descent are subject; while if situated on the leeward side,
it might recuperate itself from the moist forest air, the drained cur-,
rent coming over the mountain. Here, by obstructing the gentle
south wind, it may keep a valley longer in the rigors of winter ;
there, by cutting off the cooling breezes, it may make less bearable
the -heat of summer. So that an objectionable influence may
be shown as well as a favorable one, according to local conditions.

With more assurance can we speak of the influence which the
forest-cover exerts upon the soil and water conditions. Again, it
is the location with reference to the configuration and geologic
formation which imparts the value to the forest, and hence, again,
generalization is not permissible. Here, where an excess of moist-
ure due to subsoil conditions used to be removed by the process of
vegetation, deforestation induces the formation of marshes, and in
consequence unfavorable sanitary influences on the surroundings
may result ; there, under different conditions, where evaporation
had been checked by the forest, its removal reduces the humidity
of the soil and the size and continuity of springs. Remove it from
the shifting sands of the coast and the formation of sand dunes
encroaching on the agricultural lands is induced ; burn the forest
floor on the sandy gulf coast plains and you destroy its fertility ;
burn the litter that accumulates under the forest-cover on the
mountain slopes and the waters will run riot and gully the ground ;
torrents, landslides, snowslides, avalanches are induced, washouts
filling the valley and the river with debris, causing stow-waters
and increasing, if not producing, floods. The significance then of
the forest under given conditions as an important factor in the
general conditions of a country cannot be denied.

Lastly, when we consider that forest-growth is capable of pro-
ducing values on ground which cannot be utilized profitably in any
other way, its significance as a national resource may be considered
sufficiently established by this brief exhibit. This latter capacity

44

of forest-growth is of the more significan¢e when we look over the
world and count the waste places which man has produced.
There are in France and Germany alone over 500 square miles
of sand dunes, which France has shown, by a reforestation of nearly
300 square miles, can be profitably utilized. In Austria the waste
places capable of reforestation are nearly 2,000 square miles; in
Italy, 1,500; in France, nearly 10,000 square miles; in Great
Britain and Ireland, over 11 per cent. ; in Greece, over 15 per
cent. of the area is waste, while in Germany only 2.7 per cent.
Hence, of late, all these governments strive to bring these vast
unproductive areas into useful occupancy. Prussia spends $250,-
ooo yearly in that direction. France has spent round $30,000,000
within the last 25 years in recuperating devasted forest areas, and
even Russia has, since 1843, reclothed over 50,000 acres of her
steppe. .

We have seen that, as a meteorological and cultural element, the
location of the forest is all-important, and its most pronounced value
as such element is found on the mountain-sides, on shifting sands and
on the poorest soil, in general; that is to say, those locations where
the material product must be necessarily inferior to that of better
situations and where, therefore, forestry is least profitable. They
are the very areas where private activity can find satisfaction only
by reaping the natural crop. Yet here the danger from mis-man-
agement—that is a management in which no regard is taken of the
simultaneous or immediate reproduction when the crop is harvested
—must be the greatest, since the baring of the slopes and sand soils
may mean destruction of fertility, not only of the bared but also of
the adjoining areas, and increasing dangers from flood waters.
Hence the interest of the community must be centered upon these
forest areas.

It has been contended that the reproduction of forest-growth
takes place of its own accord, and hence the interest of the State
as far as material production is concerned, need be only of that
general character which it has in all products and industries of the
nation. ‘This contention, however, is erroneous, if considered from
an economical point of view. While culled and denuded areas do
reproduce a wood-growth, this—in quality and especially in quan-
tity per acre—is only in rare cases satisfactory and economical.
The reckless squandering of material, the disregard of the condition
of the area after being left by the lumberman, the practice of firing,
and thereby destroying the young growth as well as the fertility of

45

the soil, are to a large extent detrimental to the reproduction of the
resource, and experiences all over the world have shown that by
such reckless policy recuperation can be rendered almost impossible.

As far as the production of material constitutes the forest a
resource, it is not tree-growth merely but quality of the growth
that makes it valuable, just as it is not the presence of iron but
its sufficiency and quality in the ore, that makes the iron mine of
value. The forest primeval contains much material which is of
little or no value, and large areas are required to produce small
amounts of good timber, but in its reproduction it can be improved
in value and yield, and that without anything but proper use and
management. ‘The forest differs from agricultural and horticultural
products of the soil in so far as the latter are usually improvements
upon the natural product in kind, by human ingenuity and labor,
while the natural product as found in the virgin forest satisfies the
needs of man.

An important difference, too, and one which makes the use of
the soil for forest growth as an economical element desirable, is,
that while agricultural crops exhaust soils of their fertile elements,
wood-growth does not rely on these to any extent, returns the lar-
ger amount of those utilized by the fall of leaves and branches,
and improves thereby the soil for agricultural use.

The production of starch or sugar, and albuminoids, which is
the object of agriculture, takes place at the expense of the minerals
in the soil which are carried off with the yearly crop, while forest
products, being in the main cellulose and its derivatives, are formed
at the expense of the inexhaustible carbon of the atmosphere ;
and, although small quantities of the rarer minerals are also re-
quired, they are used over and over again for processes of assimi-
lation from year to year, since the crop is not removed annually ;
and when it comes to harvesting, those parts of the tree which
contain most of these minerals, the foliage and litter, remain on
the ground. ‘Thus a potato field fora medium crop requires three
times as much of the rare phosphoric acid as a beech growth, five
times as much as a spruce forest, and nine times the requirement
of an acre of pine, while the consumption of potash is nine,
thirteen and seventeen times, respectively, as great.

Hence the capacity of forest growth to utilize those soils which
have been exhausted by agricultural use ; and by the deep going
roots mineral elements are raised to the surface and the soil
improved. Forest growth makes also less demand upon favorable

46

topographical and climatic situation, and will succeed where
agriculture is no longer profitable or is impossible. Hence we
may speak of absolute forest soils, that is soils which on account
of their poverty, steep topography and climatic ill-favor are not fit
for anything but forest-growth. The extent of what can be con-
sidered such absolute forest soil depends somewhat on the state of
culture of the country. But itis a fact of highest national interest,
that inferior soils and impracticable sites can be profitably utilized
by forest-growth.

The main difference between forestry and other productive indus-
tries is the long period of production. From the time of planting
to the time of harvest many decades may pass and a century may
not_be too long. As long as it is not only wood, but size and
quality that is wanted, the factor of time is an important one, for
it takes time to produce both size and quality. ‘There are, to be
sure, some uses for which timber may be grown in short rotations,
as, for instance, where only firewood or posts or tanbark is wanted,
but these uses are confined in extent.

When we consider not merely the virgin forest growth but a
rational forest management, we find that it differs from agriculture
in various financial aspects. In agriculture the soil alone is the
standing capital or basis of production from which annually the
interest is derived in the crop. In forestry the soil, plus a certain
amount of growth, is the producing basis ; only a part of the
growing crop can be utilized annually, the rest, remaining for
further accumulations, must be considered as part of the fixed
capital. This condition at least prevails where an annual revenue
is to be derived from the business. It is of course possible to work
for an intermittent revenue, waiting until the entire growth has
reached the age for utilization, and after harvest starting the new
crop for another rotation ; but this is not the most profitable way,
and in the end it may be irrelevant financially, whether we con-
ceive the growing crop partly as a capital or simply as an accumu-
lation of revenue which we may not utilize. To make a regulated
forest management possible and profitable, to yield sufficient annual
returns and to occupy the manager fully, a larger extent of territory
is required than in agriculture ; hence a larger standing capital is
required. Agriculture, on the other hand, while needing compara-
tively small fixed capital, requires a comparatively larger running
capital for expenses.

The existence of this stock in forest management places it in a

47

particular position with reference to insurance and credit systems
and the question of renting. There are dangers threatening this
stock which make’ forest property hazardous, more or less so
according to locality, kind of timber, kind of management and
moral sense of the population. In the United States the danger
from fire makes forestry one of the unsafest industries, and theft, it
would appear, endangers it about as much. Insect ravages are
the bane of the cultivated forests of Europe. But what they will
be in the United States—the El dorado of vermin—when forest
management has begun in earnest and the damage is felt more
severely, is hardly conceivable.

The damage differs in value with the age of the growth. Fire
may destroy the accumulated stock and crop of centuries ; insects
may destroy the saplings, and grubs kill the young seedling
growth. Windfalls or tornadoes may interfere with the regular
system of management and may make a utilization of the stock
necessary before its maturity, and thus occasion an overstocking
of the market and decline of values.

While there are some dangers in agriculture, such as unfavorable
weather, frosts, etc., that are not at all or to a less extent felt in
forestry, it is there only one vear’s crop that suffers, while here
accumulated stores Are exposed to hazard.

Since the main value of forest property lies in the accumulated
stock, the soil being mostly of inferior value, and this stock is most
exposed to depreciation and depredation, it does not form a fit
object for credit, nor is it for the same reasons a desirable property
to rent. The stock is all the year round exposed to the depreda-
tions of others, hence it requires a comparatively large expenditure
for protection simply. The existence of this stock is also apt to
prove dangerous as far as the proprietor himself is concerned, for
it offers a constant temptation to utilize it at the expense of a
rational management. Necessity, folly, or miscalculation may
easily diminish it, while to place it again upon its proper value
and quantity is difficult. Hence, if it is in the interest of the
community to maintain stable conditions of property, or where the
forest partakes of the protective quality, more special care in
regard to the laws regulating forest property seems necessary.

Roscher says :—

‘* Where the sale of property becomes jobbing, 7. ¢., where it is
purchased not to be managed, but to be sold as soon as possible for
the purpose of pocketing the difference in price, agriculture

48

declines ; but with forests such abuse of property in soil is much
more dangerous on account of the characteristics of forest manage-
ment, so that here slow change of proprietorship is proportionately
much more advantageous.”’

The labor conditions in forest management are also worthy of
note. Less labor is required here than in agriculture, since
cropping and harvest recur only at the end of the long period of
rotation, and the work of cultivation is connected mainly with
harvest of material. Yet while few laborers are needed for their
full time a large number is given work at a time when work in
agricultural pursuits isslack. According to statistics from German
Government forests, agriculture employs from ten to even thirty
times as much labor per acre as forestry ; of the class of foremen,
inspectors and similiar occupations, one man is needed for every
200 or 300 acres in agriculture, while to one forest-guard 500 to
1,800, and to one district-manager 5,000 to 15,000 acres are calcu-
lated. Altogether, the forest offers less employment to labor than
agriculture ; the factor of nature has more sway init. ‘This may
have been the reason, why everywhere, the idea of private owner-
ship in this kind of property has developed slowly and less regard
is paid to property rights in it.

Further differences between agriculture and’ forestry are found in
the conditions of transportation and market. ‘The bulkiness and
heaviness of the material make transportation difficult and com-
paratively expensive, so that the cheaper grades, especially fire-
wood, may not be profitably utilized. It has been figured out by-a
good mathematician (Little) that if it were necessary to convey
the amount of timber annually consumed in America from foreign
ports, the entire sailing tonnage of the world would be required.
With undeveloped means of transportation, the market for wood is
locally circumscribed, and hence unprofitable, an intensive utiliza-
tion of the crop is precluded, and the best management often
impossible.

As to profitableness of the business, this depends on so many
factors and conditions that it cannot be easily determined in a
general way. Although the profit per acre resulting from Euro-
pean forest management seems exceedingly low, it must not be
forgotten that this profit is derived from the poorest soils and with
little expenditure of working capital. In Prussia, for ten years,
the revenue for the entire forest area of the Gevernment was $1.92
per acre ; in Saxony, $5.60 ; in the very profitable forest manage-

. 49

ment of Zurich, $6.45; and on about 10,000,000 acres of German
Government forest areas, it averaged $2.89, while agricultural land
brought, according to crops, from $8.75 (buckwheat) to $96.00
(tobacco) per acre, annual income. Excepting, therefore, the poorer
soil and special conditions and kinds of management (for instance,
coppice management of short rotation for tanbark), agriculture is
more profitable. During the long time necessary for production in
forestry, the conditions may moreover change to such an extent
that what appeared a profitable undertaking when begun, by
change of circumstances becomes unprofitable. The difficulties in
gauging and balancing supply and demand may also be considered
greater than in agriculture. On the other hand, the possibility
of delaying the harvest or cutting it earlier, according to market
conditions, is an advantage in forestry. It is also possible to store
the harvest without the detriment or expense which agricultural
crops would entail.

Since forest management does not admit of rapid changes in
plans and method, but requires a conservative and well-matured
plan, not only should the forest manager command a considerable
scientific education and knowledge, but he must have a determined
character which is capable of carrying through a policy upon
which he has decided. Forest management implies and fosters
stability and conservatism. Having conceived the state as an
association for the purpose of regulating and adjusting the differ-
ences of private and communal interests and rights, and having
agreed that the preservation of favorable conditions for associated
life, the interest of the future community, is as much the con-
cern of the state as the protection of the present community ; we
may now more specifically define the position of the state with
reference to the forest resources.

The state must be guided by the principle, that as much latitude
should be left to private activity and property rights as is compati-
ble with the interests of the community, only when this activity
and exercise of property right is demonstrably and directly harm-
ful to communal interests is state interference called for. The
individual must be guided by the familiar legal maxim, ‘‘ S7c
utere tuo ut alienum non laedas.’’

With increasing population and more complex civilization, the
friction of contending interests must grow more pronounced and
more frequent. As elbow-room gets scarcer, elbows more frequently
knock against each other and poke into the sides of neighbors.

5° .

Hence more points are discovered where interests are at variance,
and the principle of preventing the use of private rights to the
detriment of the community needs to be more carefully enforced.

While with a large virgin forest-resource to draw upon and a
small population, in the United States the government paid but
little concern to the disposal of forest land and forest supplies ;
with a reduction of the latter and with increased requirements for
the same, at least such ameliorative government action is called
for as will aid private interest to utilize the resource more rationally
and to better advantage for continued yield and future supplies.
Since, in most cases, the resource is capable of restoration, the
widest latitude to private activity should be granted, and the office
of the state should be mainly directed to remove hindrances to a
full development of a rational forest management and offer such
positive encouragement as can be given by proper protection, by
fostering educational agencies, and in similar ways. ‘The state
agencies which are employed to facilitate a knowledge of market
conditions for agricultural crops and of crop areas are, perhaps, still
more desirable in the case of forest areas and cut and demand,
since it is more difficult to determine these.

As far as production of wood material is concerned—a profitable
private industry—and the use of the soil in the most profitable
manner, it may be presumed that private interest is identical with
that of the community and will adjust itself accordingly ; although
this axiom can hardly be said to be recognized everywhere, as the
poor mountain farms in the Adirondacks and elsewhere show.
It will, however, have been observed that the nature of forest
property to forest management is such as to make large and con-
tinuous holdings desirable. Hence, if the state—the community
at large—does not itself retain the ownership of its forest area, it
should encourage the aggregation of large forest areas in the hands
of strong capitalists, individuals or corporations.

The providential and restrictive function of the state is first
called into play when, by the wrong treatment of a forest, a neigh-
bor may be injured in the enjoyment of his own property, or when
the cultural conditions of whole sections of country are endangered
by the free exercise of property-rights on forest areas. Whether
such injury is done or is to be expected from the unrestricted ex-
ercise of private rights is often difficult to determine. Our knowl-
ledge of the relation of natural agencies is by no means so well
established as to allow us definite prediction. On the other hand,

51

there are certain conditions under which the consequences of forest
destruction or forest devastation are so well understood that state
supervision in one shape or other can reasonably be claimed to be
rational.

The effect of the deforestation on sand dunes has been experi-
enced in Southern France and elsewhere to the fullest extent ; just
so the effect of mismanagement and deforestation of steep moun-
tain sides, which demonstrably give rise to the pauperization of
whole districts and communities, by washing off the soil, irregular
water flow and increased flood dangers. Climatic influences, with

the exception of reducing the detrimental action of winds, are
perhaps less easily demonstrated.

Such forest property, then, cannot be left to the absolute control
of the private owner. Since, however, he should be compensated
for the restriction which he has to suffer for the public welfare,
and since the damage done or to be expected may not always be
easily proved or estimated in its extent and amount, the only
proper solution is state ownership of the property. And by state
ownership I do not mean to imply that the state or the general
government should necessarily be understood ; I mean the com-
* munity—be it state, county or township—the interests of which
are at stake as against the private interest. To be sure asa rule,
it will be found that the interest of several towns, counties, or
even states are concerned in the control of private occupancy, and
the strong, immutable, conservative central government will be
found the best agency to control or own the mountain forests at
least. Such ownership has the advantage of securing the object
in view, while any restrictions of private rights are cumbersome
and dfficult toenforce. Besides, as such forests are situated mainly
on the thinner soils, and rugged slopes of mountains, and, hence,
are not only less profitably worked, but their reproduction is con-
nected with difficulty and, if improperly treated, may become
almost impossible; they form a questionable object for private
industry in which financial gain is the leading principle.

The states which have recognized most fully the need of Gov-
ernment control of the forest resources are the English colonies—
notably those of Australia and India—states from which we can
learn a good deal in methods of internal improvements. They
have done more than consider the protective function of the forest,
they have recognized that the uncertainty and great fluctuation of
supplies which, on account of the peculiar nature of forest prop-
- erty, must result from private forest management, is undesirable,

52

and hence have reserved large areas and placed them under gov-
ernment management. All other civilized governments, excepting
those of the American continent, have more or less applied the
principles here laid down. Canada, while disposing of its forest
supplies to private individuals, does so under restrictions, and
reserves at least the land; Germany, with 32.2 per cent of state
forest, 18.7 per cent. of communal forest, and 30 per cent. of the
private forest under more or less state supervision, thus attempts
to keep secure 65.5 per cent. of her forest area. Austria, France,
Italy, Switzerland, all having state forests, also control the man-
agement of their protective forests, and the tendency everywhere is
to enlarge the restrictive power of the state.

While here state-ownership and restriction of private rights is
directed toward maintaining favorable forest conditions, the refor-
estation of devastated and treeless areas forms also a proper subject
for the state. Such state action of an ameliorative nature would
be based upon the principle, that the community should act where
the exertions of the single individual or even voluntary association
of individuals is powerless, or private interest does not find suffi-
cient inducement to attain an important economic object, where
the communal interest is better subserved by the action of the
state, when permanent institutions are to be created and managed
independently of personal whim, and the state alone can insure
permanence, continuity and the accomplishment of the object.
Hence the reforestation of the Western plains, for purposes of
ameliorating cultural conditions, would be properly delegated to —
the state, especially as long as the state still controls the land
necessary for such forest planting. Feeble attempts to encourage
private enterprise in that direction have been made with little
result, and much of the private energy expended upon the problem
has been dead loss to the individual and to the nation, for the
reason that only by concerted action on a large scale is successful
reforestation in the arid regions to be expected.

The method of assisting private enterprise, in any other way
than by creatiag opportunities, is the least commendable, creating
as it does a paternalism which would be a bane to the develop-
ment of proper self-government, and which is widely different
from the communal spirit which the writer has advocated in his
propositions.

Summarizing the special considerations and peculiarities per-
taining to forest growth and forestry which may influence state
action, they can be briefly stated as follows:

53

1. By its locatiom upon mountain slopes, sand dunes and other-
wise, the forest niay represent a climatic and cultural condition of
paramount importance, which renders its material value a second-
ary consideration.

2. By mismanagement or neglect the capacity for reproduction
may be injured to such an extent as to make reforestation imprac-
ticable, if not impossible.

3. Forest growth improves instead of exhausting the fertility of
the soil, and is capable of producing ugeful material on the poorest
soils and sites.

4. By proper methods of utilization alone reproduction of the
virgin forest superior in quality and yield can be effected.

5. Forestry differs from other industries in the long period of
production, necessitating an accumulation of stock, which is
exposed to various dangers for a long period of time, and hence
renders the business hazardous.

6. Forestry requires large areas and a large fixed capital, but
only small running capital. It employs little labor, but furnishes
employment at seasons when elsewhere labor is less needed.

7. Asa financial investment, forestry is beset with many draw-
backs, which render it less desirable for private enterprise ; the
necessity of keeping on hand a large stock exposed to danger
renders it not a desirable object for financial operations.

8. Forestry engenders and requires permanence, continuity of
plans, management and conservatism.

REPORT ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE
PUBLIC FORESTS OF QUEBEC.

E. E. TAcCHE, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER oF CROWN LANDS OF
THE PROVINCE.

The general administration of our woods and forests is not, in
its main features, peculiar to the Province of Quebec, and, as it
originated long before the Confederation, it is on the whole the
same as that followed on the Dominion lands, in Ontario, and to a
certain degree in New Brunswick.

54

With few exceptions in this country, the interest of colonizing
the wild lands of the Crown and that of utilizing the products and
resources of the forests for trade and commerce, have always been
kept distinct. That is to say, the right to cut timber over the
Government lands is granted by a permit to that effect, in the
nature of a lease, but not, in any way, conveying permanent terri-
torial concession. As the lots located for settlement are often
derived from a territory under permit to cut timber, the interests of
settler and lumberman somgtimes conflict ; and the desire to recon-
cile both interests has caused the enforcement of a few laws which
are not always easy to apply for the benefit of all parties interested.
* On June 30, 1890, the wooded lands subject to timber license
covered an area of some 50,119 square miles, equivalent to 32,076,-
160 acres in superficies, eighty per cent. extending over tracts not
as yet subdivided into townships and consequently not, for the
present at least, exposed to the inconvenience just alluded to.

The territory subject to license is sub-divided into limits or tim-
ber berths, generally resting on a’river or water course, having a
front of ten miles by a depth of five. Latterly, to satisfy the
demand, the sub-divisions have been reduced in area—from twenty
to twenty-five miles—and a more regular form has been followed
irrespective of the river frontage.

The right to cut merchantable timber over a specified area is
authorized, controlled, and governed by the provisions of the 23d
Chapter of the Consolidated Statutes of the former Province of
Canada, as now amended and contained in our Provincial Statutes,
in articles 1309 to 1352.

Since 1872, this privilege is acquired at public auction only,
after due notification inserted in the Official Gazette and the prin-
cipal leading newspapers, and, when adjudged to the highest bidder,
is conveyed by a license renewable each year, on the accomplish-
ment of certain strict obligations. The charges consist in the price
of purchase and of the first year’s ground rent, $3.00 per each
superficial mile contained in the limit or berth acquired, and, for
its yearly renewal, that of the annual rent and of the stumpage
dues levied on the quantity of wood goods that may be derived
therefrom each season.

The timber dues, according to the regulations now in force, dated
February 3d, 1888, for the staple of production, are the following :

Pine, birch, basswood, cedar, spruce, elm, ash, tamarac
and all other square timber, percubic foot, . . . 2 cents.

55

Pine, sawlogs, boom and dimension timber, and all other
logs or woods intended for sawing, except spruce,
hemlock, cypress and balsam, per standard of 200
feet board measure, . . . b aXe ide p+" 26.cents.
Equivalent to $1.30 per choi feet, — measure.

Spruce, hemlock, cypress and balsam sawlogs, per stand-
muot 200-fect, board Measere, ou 5 le «Ce «C3 cetits.
Equivalent to 65c. per thousand feet, board measure.

The right to renew the licenses is guaranteed to the 1st of Sep-
tember, 1900, and the’ tariff of dues and the ground rent is to
remain in the same or, at least, is not to be increased up to that
date. This is defined by the Orders in Council, dated April 18 and
24, 1888.

In Ontario and at Ottawa, the right to renewal seems unlimited,
but no engagements exist as regards any possible changes which
may effect the tariff in the future. _

By section 6, of Ch. XV. of 51 and 52 Vict., corresponding to
article 1341 of the Provincial Consolidated Statutes, the words
“merchantable timber’’ mean “‘white and red pine, spruce, tamarac,
birch, white birch, and ash,’’ to which species the limit holders are
now restricted in their operations.

Moreover, by article 33 of the regulations of February, 1888,
licentiates are no longer permitted to cut pine trees measuring less
than 12 inches nor trees of any other kind measuring less than 9
inches in diameter at the stump.

Besides these precautionary measures, enacted to impede the
total destruction of the forests at the hands of the license holders,
the Legislature has also provided measures for the prevention of
similar disastrous results at the hands of the settlers. Thus by 51
and 52 Vic. Ch. 15, sec. 3-4 (article 1339 Consolidated Statutes), a
forest reserve of 20 per cent. is to be made on each lot of 100 acres
sold hereafter for actual settlement. And further, in the interest
of all, Government, limit holders, and settlers, the law, as far back
as 1871, minutely defines the measures to be followed for the pre-
vention of forest fires, and, in connection therewith, all the precau-
tions to be taken in the clearing of land for purposes of settlement.

As the law, in its execution, was left to a great number of per-
sons and not to one especially named for that object, and, in con-
sequence, greatly lacked efficacy, the Province, by an act passed in
1883, and of another to the same effect sanctioned in 1889, (52 Vict.

56

Ch. 17), has been divided into seven fire districts, and a superin-
tendent placed over each, with power from the Commissioner of
Crown Lands to employ the necessary number of men for the sup-
pression of any forest fires, a sum of $5,000.00 is annually set apart
by the Government for that service, and the licentiates, who are
also interested in the preservation of their locations, are obliged to
contribute a similar amount for the expenses incurred in this con-
nection. ‘This contribution, called ‘‘ fire fee,’’ is collected from the
limit holders in proportion of the area held by each.

Lastly, to encourage the planting and cultivation of forest trees,
the Legislature has provided, by 45 Vict. Ch. 13, ‘‘ that whosoever
‘“being the proprietor of and in possession of any land, shall plant
“any part of such a land, not less than one acre in extent, with
‘‘ forest trees, shall be entitled to receive in respect of every acre of
““land so planted, a land-order which shall authorize him to pur-
‘“chase to such an amount not exceeding $12.00, any of the public
‘“lands which may be open for sale within the Crown Lands
‘“ Agency in which such trees have been planted, or should there
‘‘not be such agency, then in the nearest agency subject to the
‘law respecting Crown Lands.”’

It is by the same statute that ‘‘ arbor day’’ has been established
in the Province of Quebec, (see Cons. Stats., Art. 1359 to 1368).

At this point, I think I owe you a word about the ‘‘ Forestry
Reserve Act,’’ now repealed, as I am not certain if the public of
this Province ever realized what it meant. It was originally sug-
gested by this Association at the congress at Montreal, in August,
1882, and though popularly deemed a measure hostile to coloniza-
tion, it was really intended to direct it to the best advantage of the
country. The principle at issue, was the reserve, for forest use, of
all the lands which were most fit for that object, and to sell for
colonization only all that was suitable for that purpose.

To make a selection, detailed and lengthy inspections of each lot
were necessary, involving the suspension of sales in certain districts ;
and this momentary suspension was interpreted as an act of pro-
hibition. Hence complaints and attacks were raised, which brought
on the repeal of the law, but I leave it to the thinking public to
judge if this measure was not imbued with all sound ideas of
provident forethought ; even if opposed to preconceived ideas about
the grievances of the poor settlers.

To return to the management of our forest domain. For the
administration of woods and forests, this Province is divided into

7

on

nineteen agencies, and to compass exactly the extent of our prin-
cipal sources of production, a brief description of the most import-
ant of these districts will be found useful.

The ‘‘ Upper Ottawa,’’ comprises the upper northern valley of
that river, extending from Lake Témiscamingue and the due North
boundary line between Ontario and Quebec, to the West, as far as
the division line of the waters of the Gatineau and Liévre to the
East, from the South on the Ottawa itself, extending to the height
of land between the waters of the St. Lawrence and those of
Hudson’s Bay, to the North.

The ‘‘ Lower Ottawa’’ embraces the Northern basin of the
same river from that of the Liévre inclusive to the West, extend-
ing to the North-East over the territory drained by the upper
waters of the l’ Assomption, Lac Quareau and Maskinongé tribu-
taries of the St. Lawrence, and bounded to the North by the
summit lands dividing the Ottawa water system from that of the
St. Maurice.

The ‘‘St. Maurice’’ agency comprises the entire valley of that
river, together with that of the ‘‘Du Loup”’ to the West, and that
of the Batiscan to the East; the ‘‘St. Charles,’’ the basins of the
St. Anne, Jacques Cartier and Montmorency; the ‘“‘ Lake St.
John,’’ East and West, the territory watered by the Saguenay and
the whole of its tributaries.

‘““The Saguenay Agency’’ comprises all that part of the North-
ern basin of the river and gulf of St. Lawrence from the Saguenay
to Anse au Blanc Sablon, at the Eastern extremity of the Province.
The others, of much less importance, are the ‘‘Gaspé,’’ East
and West, ‘‘ Bonaventure,’’ East and West, ‘‘ Rimouski,’’ East
and West, ‘‘ Grandville,’ ‘‘Montmagny,’’ Beauce, ‘ Artha-
baska,’’ ‘‘St. Francis’? and ‘‘ Magog.”’

The stumpage to be paid is ascertained as follows: As soon as
winter sets in and lumbering operations are fully opened, the
various-forest rangers appointed in each agency, directed by the
Superintendent, follow closely the cut effected in each shanty and
also by the jobbers. They keep record of all they count and
measure and revise the entries made by the cullers of the data
which they could not otherwise gather, Their records, with those
of the cullers, are all sworn to and are finally examined by the
Superintendents, who has a direct control over all the movements
of the rangers.

58

There are six Superintending officers for the whole Province,
appointed for the proper execution of the present system of levy-
ing duty.

At first, the stumpage was imposed per log, classified according
to a certain diameter ; but now, as in Ontario and elsewhere, the
logs or pieces are taxed on their actual contents reduced to board
measure, a system more equitable and effectual, but also more costly,
requiring closer surveillance, and a greater number of rangers
to effect it.

Formerly the returns prepared by the operators’ and rangers’ re-
port were examined by the Crown Timber Agents, under whom
the lumbering was performed, but now the statements are ad-
dressed directly to the Department, where they are confronted
with the books kept by the wood rangers, revised by the Superin-
tendents. The accounts compiled therefrom are then sent to the
producer and the local agents for collection.

The duty on square timber, which is generally all manufactured
for the English market and floated to Quebec for shipment, is col-
lected here by a special officer (who acts also for the Province of
Ontario) on the specifications as to the contents furnished by the
cullers’ office of the Dominion Government.

When I entered the service, I was frequently told that at the
rate of cutting followed, in 20 years there would be no more mer-
chantable pine logs in the Province. The 20 years have elapsed
and more, and the number and amount produced is greater than
ever it was, and each year I find that larger quantities of pine
timber are brought down and derived from limits that had already
been pretty thoroughly worked forty or fifty years ago.

The total area of Government lands still vacant and not yet
under timber license, as well as can be ascertained—our Northern
boundary line being assumed to be at the height of land (a line
which is extremely irregular and geodetically determined at a few
points only) y not less than 75,000,000 acres, of which
40,000,000 may be deducted as destitute of timber, leaving 35,000,-
ooo acres still untouched.

Out of that last named superficies, 3 to 4,000,000 may be safely
laid down as pine-growing, the rest is chiefly covered with spruce,
cedar, tamarac, white birch, cypress, birch, and maple. ‘Those
species, in the order where they each predominate, may be distri-
buted as follows: The pine in the Lower Ottawa and the St.
Maurice agencies, but principally in the Upper Ottawa Valley.

59°

With respect thereto, to indicate the rapid increase in price which
this valuable wood takes yearly, I may state that, at the last auc-
tion sale, held in January last, limits situate in the most remote
and inaccessible section of the last named region, fetched the high-
est bonus ever obtained at any such public sale held before in the
Province.

Excellent spruce, and in quantity, is to be found in the St.
Maurice, Saguenay, Lake St. John, Bonaventure, Rimouski and
Grandville agencies, as well as tamarac and cedar, the latter being
particularly good and abundant in the three last named localities.
Tamarac is spread evenly all through the divisions just mentioned.
White birch is disseminated everywhere, but is especially plenti-
ful in the St. Maurice Valley, and the Saguenay and Rimouski
regions. Cypress and scrub pine, (Banksian pine), in the Sa-
guenay region.

From surveyors’ reports, this timber, which is well adapted for
railways ties, covers the immense tracts of land watered by the
Peribonka, Bersimis, Aux Outardes, and Manicouagan rivers and
tributaries.

Then, beyond this Northern height of land, expands the vast
wilderness that we now claim in part, and which, at an early
date, will certainly fall within our frontiers. Although not all
wooded, it contains large extents of timber-growing lands which,
some day, will become within easy reach and then fully worth
seeking after.

From the little I have said, we can, I think, soundly judge of
the magnitude of our forest resources which may surely be set
’ amongst the richest of this continent. They form the main item
‘of our Provincial local revenue ; their existence, as a climatic in-
fluence, assures the fertility of our grain growing plains of the
borders of the St. Lawrence ; their exploitation furnishes employ-
_ ment and living to thousands and thousands of persons of all
classes ; they afford a rich market to our farmers, and moreover they
comprise the bulk of our export, nine-tenths of the ships who
frequent our harbors going back to all the countries of the world,
laden with their produce.

In a financial point of view, the timber trade and the industries
depending therefrom have greatly helped to make Canada, and.
they sustain Quebec. Without them, both would be reduced, at
least for a time, to a state of comparative insignificance. This
element, in our political economy as a nation, is of immense
importance.

60

It is true that, to a certain degree, we may feel assured of a sim-
ilar constant supply for the future as in the past, counting upon
the physical construction of the upper Valley of all the Northern
tributaries of the St. Lawrence, which makes of the greater part
of our territory a natural forest region, and that the rigorous cli-
mate which pervades over those elevated plateaux render them in
many places unfit for anything else, as they will not admit of ex-
tensive permanent self-supporting settlements.

It is, however, also undeniable that remarkable legislative and
administrative measures have been and are constantly put into
requisition for the preservation of our timber wealth; but there
remains still something to be done, especially at a time when rail-
way lines are being projected, constructed, and worked through
the very centre of these formerly inaccessible regions ; creating
thereby new facilities for the working out of the tree products
and also new factors of intended and accidental destruction. Cer-
tainly the subject is one which deserves our best thought and
reflection.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN FORESTS.

EpGAR T. ENSIGN, FOREST COMMISSIONER OF COLORADO.

It is hardly necessary to say that the mountains are the most
prominent physical characteristic of the Rocky Mountain region ;
and one cannot observe these attentively without noting the presence
or absence of their natural covering, the forests. Again, in connec-
tion with the forests, it is difficult to overlook the intimate relation
existing between them and the streams flowing from their midst.

Locationand Area. 'The forests of this region, mainly coniferous,
are usually situated upon the mountain slopes, at altitudes vary-
ing from 4,500 to 12,000 feet above the sea; in some cases at
12,500 feet.

The forest areas, though large in themselves, are not so if com-
pared with the area of the entire region, nor are they to a consider-
able degree contiguous. There are, at present, no means of
determining accurately their bounds and extent. Approximate
estimates only can be given, based mainly upon statements re-

61

ceived from residents in, or persons having special knowledge of,
particular portions of the region. According to the best data
obtainable, and including in the estimate all kindsof forest growth,
light and heavy, valuable and inferior, the approximate forest
areas, in square miles, of the several divisions are as follows :—
Idaho, 15,990; Montana, 26,285 ; Wyoming, 12,060; Utah, 6,000 ;
Colorado, 16,625; New Mexico, 12,500; Arizona, 10,300; the
total being in round numbers 100,000 square miles, or 13.2 per
cent. of the total land area. It will be seen that Montana has the
largest forest area, and Utah the smallest. The bulk of this forest
land is still owned by the Federal Government.

Forests and Irrigation. ‘The direct connection between western
forests and the agriculture of the region is evident. The moun-
tain forests nourish and protect the streams, and the streams are
vitally necessary to the maintenance of the vast irrigation systems
already established or in progress. In each of the Rocky
Mountain States and Territories the largest and most important
agricultural operations are conducted by irrigation. If it be true
of any region that ‘‘the forest waters the farm,’’ it is doubly
true of that under consideration. It is estimated that the area
here already covered by irrigating canals exceeds 6,000,000 acres.

Forest conditions. Upon the mountain ranges are irregular
masses of coniferous forests, separated by wide spaces—the latter
treeless, or sometimes clothed with a growth of aspen, stunted
conifers, or shrubs. Bordering the streams are cottonwood, willow,
alder, and other deciduous growths of minor importance. Scrub-
oak and cedar, sage-brush and other shrubs—in rare cases a
scattering growth of timber—are found on the foot-hills, mesas
and plateaus.

This region, though nearly surrounded by arid or semi-arid
plains, and subject, more or less, to conditions of aridity, heat and
cold, inimical to forest!growth, receives in many parts a compara-
tively large precipitation of moisture, and has abundant sunshine
through a large portion of the year. To these last named causes
the relatively extensive forests are due, and but for the scourge of
fire these would probably be at least one-third greater in extent.
Upon the western slopes of the mountains the annual fall of rain
and snow is greater than ‘on the eastern; hence the larger and
more important forests are found there. Furthermore, the forests
of that region have suffered less from fire and depredation than
elsewhere. In all parts of the mountain country, northern ex-

62

posures are the most favorable to forest growth, as affording maxi-
mum conditions of moisture and a minimum degree of evaporation.

Among the most noted Rocky Mountain conifers are the White
Fir (Adzes concolor), the Silver Spruce (Picea pungens) and the
Creeping Juniper (/unzperus procumbens).

Destructive Agencies. Where the mountain sides have been
stripped of forest covering, violent storms of rain and wind have
had a powerful and disastrous effect. The light surface mould has
been blown away or carried downward to the valleys, and this has
often been followed by masses of sand and gravel. Where once
stood noble forests, are barren, irreclaimable waste, seamed and
furrowed by torrents.

The demands of settlement, mining, lumber manufacture, rail-
way construction, charcoal burning, etc., are making heavy
draughts upon the western forests. All of these, however, might
be met without serious or irreparable injury, were it not for the
scourge of fire. It is safe to say that this agency—in the region
named, is more destructive than all others combined. ‘The evil
will not be abated until wise laws and an enlightened public senti-
ment shall secure proper and effective forest administrat.on.

Conservative Agencies. ‘The reforesting of the denuded timber-
land of this region is extremely difficult, and in some localities
practically impossible. Nature does much in such cases, however,
and though the original species may not be reproduced, an inferior
growth often appears. The extent of natural reforestation varies
greatly in different sections. In New Mexico and Arizona, where
greater degrees of heat and aridity prevail than farther north, the
second growth is proportionately less in extent and vigor. Where
fierce forest fires have scorched the ground and destroyed the vege-
table mould, the difficulty of reforestation is greatly enhanced.

What has been said herein concerning reforestation relates to
spontaneous growth only. While the necessity is great for reforest-
ing the denuded slopes, the expediency of attempting here the
artificial planting of large tracts is doubtful. If men will cease
their destructive operations, and extend a protective hand over the
forest regions, nature will repair in a measure the injuries of the
past. In truth, most kindly healing processes are already begun.
The ubiquitous aspen, with its light summer foliage and briliiant
autumn hues, gives grateful shade and moisture to wide areas
which otherwise would be barren and desolate. The dwarf maple,
creeping juniper, wild rose and other hardy shrubs are also helpful

63

in the restoration of denuded surfaces. In the midst of these
minor growths, the seeds of the pine, spruce and other timber trees
gain lodgment and find necessary protection.

Although the forests of the region are suffering loss and deple-
tion from many causes, there is reason to hope théy may be saved
from total destruction. Among the agencies tending to their con-
servation may be named the partial protection afforded them by
the federal and local governments, the work of the American
Forestry Association and a few State forestry associations, and the
influence and teaching of the public press, which, in its collective
capacity, advocates forest reform.

To the Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the Sec-
retary of the Interior, is entrusted the care of the timber as well
as other public lands, but with insufficient means to protect the
public forests, which suffer accordingly. In the Department of
Agriculture there is a Forestry Division, the fuuctions of which,
however, are almost wholly advisory. Its work, within the pre-
scribed limits, is effectively performed, and mnch good has resulted
therefrom.

The Colorado forest law, which was enacted five years ago, cre-
ates the office of State Forest Commissioner, and constitutes the
County Commissioners and road overseers, throughout the State,
forest officers in their respective localities. It is the duty of these
officers to protect from fire and depredation, so far as possible, the
public forests, and to promote by all legitimate means, the planting
of forest trees. In as much as the State authorities have no direct
control of the public timber lands, their duties are more largely
advisory and educational than administrative. In the prevention
of forest fires and depredation they co-operate with and assist to
some extent the federal officers.

Forest tree planting, which, under existing laws, is confined to
individual enterprise, though beneficial to the extent practiced, is
unlikely to make good the deficiencies caused by forest destruction.
In fact, groves and plantations of trees on the lowlands, however
extensive, cannot perform the office of forests in the mountains.

Arbor Day has legal recognition in Colorado, and its observance
there and elsewhere has an excellent effect.

The manifold uses and varied products of our forests, and their
relations to climate, streams, and irrigation need to be more fully
realized, so that their wasteful use and wanton destruction may be
stopped. Let us hope for the coming of a better day.

64

FOREST ADMINISTRATION IN FRANCE.

H. L. DE VILMORIN, PARIS.

In France, the administration of forests forms a part of the De-
partment of Agriculture, after having long been connected with
the department of Finance.

It consists of a General Director who resides at Paris, of ‘‘ Con-
servateurs,’’ each of whom takes care of one of the great forest
districts into which the whole country is divided, and of ‘ Jnzsfec-
teurs’’ who fill the local posts under the Conservateurs. ‘‘ Gardes-
généraux’’ are the younger officers of the organization, and have
head-keepers and ordinary keepers under them.

The special forestry school is at Nancy, and its reputation
such that many young men are sent there by foreign governments
for instruction. The course of studies comprises not only geology,
botany and natural history in all its branches, but also meteorol-
ogy, engineering, political economy and administrative law. The
pupils are admitted after a competitive examination, unless they
have gone through the complete course at the Institut Agricole,
our highest agricultural college. :

The duties of officers in the forestry service are many and
important.

1. They have to look to the preservation of State forests proper,
to protect them from damage, and from encroachment by
individuals or communities.

Our national forests, are mostly part of the former royal domains,
but some, till their confiscation atthe first revolution, belonged to
we “grés”’ or the great religious communities, who were often
more experienced and able land-owners than the men of to-day.

2. The officers must decide how each section of the woods en-
trusted to their care is to be made most profitable. There are two
classes ; copse or bush wood, and high-stem or standard trees.

Copse wood, mostly used for fire wood, which the comparative
scarcity and consequent high price of coals makes with us one of
the great necessaries of life, is cut after periods extending from
seven to forty years, mostly twenty to twenty-five. The standard
trees are felled after 80 to 200 years, either all at once, or by pick-
ing out some choice trees every year, or an intermediate system is
adopted, by which a few trees are spared on each acre at each

65

period of cutting, to provide seeds and at the same time some
matured timber over the underwood. The officer must apply to
each particular section the system likely to provide the largest
supply of wood, the largest returns in money, and at the same
time ensure the growth of seedlings to take the place of the felled
trees.

3. Each separate allotment, when ready for cutting, is put at
auction, and the forestry officers regulate the size and number of
the allotments, and designate trees to be cut. They have besides
to watch the operation of cutting and removing the wood and tim-
ber, in order to protect the remaining trees from damage.

The leasing of state forests to sportsmen produces, especially near
the great cities, an important revenue. While the yearly in-
come from one acre of forest is on an average not much over two
dollars, as much is sometimes given, around Paris, for the shooting
lease over the same area; and the lease-holder is moreover bound
to fence in all the parts of the wood which are under three years
growth, the forestry officers seeing that all the conditions stipu-
lated in the leases are strictly carried out.

4. The work of filling the gaps in old forests is effected either
by sowing in patches or planting in holes or trenches the kinds of
trees which it is found advisable to propagate. By those means a
change is often gradually effected in the composition of the forest,
evergreens being substituted for deciduous species, or vice versa.

5. A fifth series of duties embraces the construction of roads,
bridges, sledge-ways or wire cable systems of transport over deep
chasms or torrents. There exist still in France some mountain
sides covered with splendid old fir trees, which cannot be used for
lack of means of carrying them either on land, by water, or through
the air.

6. Another duty of the forestry officers is to control the manage-
ment of timber lands owned by communities, especially in the
mountainous districts. Such lands are under the ‘‘ régime /or-
estier,’’ that is, under the authority of the national forestry officers,
to avoid the destruction of woodlands through reckless cutting,
and the damage to young growth by injudicious grazing.

The services so rendered are all the more important as the
wanton destruction of forest in hilly, and especially in mountainous
districts, often causes floods, accompanied by great loss of property
and life.

The effect of stripping the heights of their natural coat of forest

66

is felt not only on the distribution, but also on the amount of
rainfall. Some districts in my country, which were quite fertile
and flourishing during the Middle Ages, have become quite barren
and burnt up, and the cause of the change has been clearly traced
to the destruction of forests .on the surrounding heights. Such
destruction mainly took place during modern wars, or at the time
of the great revolution.

It has been one of the principal endeavors of the recent govern-
ments in France to re-establish forests where they had existed in
former times, and especially where their influence could be most
beneficial in making the rainfall and the flow of the rivers more
regular. The results achieved are already comparatively large,
and great credit is due to the central administration for its energy
and perseverance in prosecuting this work in the teeth of number-
less difficulties, political and material.

Men must sometimes be benefitted against their will, and an in-
stance of this is found in the opposition offered by some of the
communities on whose territory the work of planting new woods
is carried on. The material difficulties are not less. Often the
bare rock is exposed, the soil having been washed away, and then -
the work can be commenced only on slopes and on the banks
of torrents. Stakes are driven among the stones, and willow twigs
and branches are interwoven so as to form a sort of fence, which
stops the earth and loose stones, on which, after a time, fir, pine or
larch trees are planted; and slowly, but not always surely, the
extent of the new plantation increases, and finally the torrent is
turned into a gentle stream, while the overhanging slopes grad-
ually become more or less densely wooded.

Great has been the work in this direction on both banks of the
Rhone, on the Provence and Auvergne mountains, in the Pyrenees,
and chiefly in the Alps, on the Durance river and on its numerous
tributaries, work the benefit of which will be mainly felt by future
generations.

A striking instance of the usefulness of the forestry service may
be seen in the Landes de Gascogne, where for years the sand,
driven by the west wind, kept moving on from the coast in huge
sandhills, which buried fields, farms, and even cities. Decisive
steps were taken to stop its inland progress about 1825. The
engineer, Lrémontier, protected the surface of the sand hills with
branches of the common broom (Savothamnus scoparius) simply
pegged in, and under that light shelter he succeeded in germinat-

67

ing seed of the cluster pine (Pinus pinaster). The work of coat-
ing the sand hills with vegetation being begun near the beach, the
task of establishing woods more inland was comparatively easy, as
the outermost belt of pine trees effectually sheltered all the sec-
tions in the rear from the high winds and the’ drifting sands. In
this way many thousand acres were covered with the cluster pine,
which furnishes valuable timber, besides large quantities of tar
and turpentine, so that the Département des Landes, once among
the poorest in all France, though one of the most extensive, has
become one of more than average wealth.

The forestry service has also promoted the creation of resinous
and deciduous woods in the swampy provice of Sologue; and in
Algeria has introduced the Eucalyptus and wattle acacias, and
developed the cork oak forests. The success of this service is due
to its highly scientific organization and the ability of its leading
members.

Now would a corresponding, not to say similar organization be
likely to prove useful in America? I think so, for many obvious
reasons :

1. The demand for wood is likely to increase with the popula-
tion, if not in the same ratio. The use of iron and steel will not
reduce the consumption of wood any more than the establishment
of railroads interfered with the demand for wagon or cart horses.

2. The natural forests are certainly being reduced in number
and in extent. Otherwise it would not pay to cut hickory stumps
left at a first clearing, as I understa:td was recently the case.

3. Whether the object in view is simply the preservation of ex-
isting forests or embraces the creation of new woodlands in such
localities as can pay better in wood than under the plough, it would
be of paramount importance to entrust the control of the whole
work to an eminently scientific body, as no guess-work should be
allowed in a matter of such deep interest, where the selection of
trees for each place should be guided by a perfect knowledge of
the geological, climatic and economic circumstances of the district.

There can be no reason why America, which has done such
admirable work in the promotion of scientific farming during the
last decade, should not exercise the same judgment and the same
enterprise in establishing scientific forestry.

68

TREE PLANTING ON THE PRAIRIES.

Hon. H. G. JoLy DE LOTBINIERE, QUEBEC.

The settler on the prairie finds the ground free of trees and
ready for the plough, but if he understands his true interests he
will devote to the planting of trees some of the time which in the
East he would have had to spend in uprooting them. He must
not only plant trees for lumber and fuel, or for the beauty which
will remind him of the home of his childhood: the trees will
also protect his fields against those winds that suck up the damp-
ness out of the soil, and will contribute to prevent the drought so
frequent in the prairies.

Belts of trees on the prairies, across the line of the prevailing
winds, would greatly tend to diminish the violence of the blizzards.
But I do not assert that thickly planted around growing crops they
would reduce the danger of night frosts. There is considerable
doubt on that point, they may even possibly increase that danger,
as stated in a recent letter by Mr. George S. M’Tavish, for many
years a chief officer of the Hudson Bay Company.

What trees are we to plant on the prairies? How are they tobe
planted and cared for? ‘There is much to learn on those points,
and the sooner we learn the better.

The Dominion Government and the Canadian Pacific Railway
are now making experiments which will prove of much value. I
am indebted to Mr. Shaughnessy, Vice President of the C. P. R.,
for the following information which he has just sent by telegraph :

‘‘Experiments in forestry have been conducted for two years
past at twenty-five points along the line of the C. P. R. The
most important of these are at Moose Jaw, Swift Current, Gull
Lake, Crane Lake, Maple Creek, Medicine Hat, Bowell and Lang-
don, covering a distance of over four hundred miles. The follow-
ing trees have succeeded best at these points: Box Elder, Ameri-
can Elm, White Ash, Green Ash, Norway Maple, American
Mountain Ash, European White Birch, Yellow Birch, native Pop-
lars and Willows, Scotch Pine and Spruce trees from the foot-
hills of the Rocky Mountains. By the free use of these trees
shelter belts and ornamental clumps can be planted successfully
on most parts of the great plains.’’

69

Both the United States and the Canadian Government have
attempted to encourage the planting of trees on the prairies by
grants of land, but this plan has not proved successful.

Trees are found on the prairies in the immediate vicinity of the
streams, which shows that the soil is not unfit to grow trees wherever
there is sufficient moisture. I may be allowed here to quote from
Colonel Ensign’s report of 1887-’88, the opinion of an experi-
enced agriculturist, who shows that trees can be grown in arid
and semi-arid districts without irrigation :

‘“A correspondent who has a timber-culture claim on govern-
ment land in the eastern part of the State, asks: Can timber be
grown here without irrigation ?

‘““We answer, it certainly can. But we must reverse the system
of eastern tree culture. There our trouble existed in the excess
of surface moisture, requiring drainage from the trees. In pre-
paring for tree planting the land was deeply plowed, thrown up
into narrow headlands and the trees planted on the highest part,
so the surface water would drain from the trees into the middle,
a ‘dead furrow,’ and be carried from the field.

““ Here we must adopt a system of surface drainage to the trees.

‘““This is done by planting in the ‘dead furrow’ instead of on
the headland. By reversing this order of planting, trees not only
receive the benefit of the rain-fall, but the snows drift into this
‘dead furrow,’ protecting the trees through the winter, and tho-
roughly soaking the ground when melting in the spring. In ad-
dition all manner of decaying vegetables drift and collect in this
low ground, forming a valuable mulch to retain moisture.’’

However that may be, it is evident that we have a great deal to
learn from experience before tree planting can be carried on suc-
cessfully on the prairies. The expense of experimental stations
conducted on scientific principles may be great, but it has become
necessary. In the meantime we can acquire a great deal of useful
practical experience with a relatively small expenditure. Scat-
tered over the western prairies of the Union there are a number of
military stations, and over the prairies of Canada many posts are
occupied by the mounted police. Why not employ the men in
planting trees at these stations? Many among them would soon
take a pride in the trees planted with their own hands, and plea-
sure in beautifying the wilderness in which their lot is cast. Noth-
ing is cheaper than starting a nursery from seed, especially when
the labor can be procured as cheaply as in this case. The men

7O

might be provided at a small expense with any quantity of seed and
a few tools; they might be shown how to start the trees and culti-
vate them, and those who did the work would have the privilege
of selling them to the settlers: There is a general demand for
young trees for planting all over the northwest.

I am convinced that if some officer in the prairie stations would
set the example, he would find among his men more than one who
would be glad to help for the sake of relieving the monotony of
their existence and for the profit it might bring them. Let them
start their plantations, watch the growth of their young trees and
tend them carefully ; they will become an object of ever growing
interest for them, and make their lonely life happier and better.

SYSTEMATIC TIMBER-CUTTING IN QUEBEC.

J. X. PERRAULT, SECRETARY OF THE QUEBEC FORESTRY
ASSOCIATION.

Now, while the destruction of the state forests is carried on so
systematically that it is possible to foretell the fatal moment when
the province of Quebec will be stripped of its most valuable forest-
trees, it is a public duty to make a last appeal to the patriotism of
the men who govern us to put an end to the vandalism of which
we are every day the witnesses.

For more than a century the public domain has been pillaged
with the thoughtless consent of the state. What was once the
finest forest-property in the world has been ruined by pasturage,
and by the wasteful methods of lumbermen who, not content to
make enormous fortunes at the expense of the Province, have cut
and destroyed everything in their path without thought of the
future.

Our neighbors in the United States have acted with the same
want of forethought, but with this difference, that with a popula-
tion ten times larger than ours the destruction of their forests has
gone on more rapidly. Never, perhaps, in the history of any peo-
ple has there been seen the administration of a public domain so
criminal and so disastrous. The forests of the United States, from

ye

the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the frontiers of Mexico to
those of Canada, cover 450,000,000 acres. The.annual cutting
over of 25,000,000 acres gives on an average 4,800,000,000 cubic
feet, of lumber. The railroads use, in addition, 500,000,000 feet,
the mines 150,000,000, fences consume 500,000,000 ; 150,000,000
feet are exported, while 18,000,000,000 feet are consumed as fuel.
The whole forms the enormous total of 24,000,000,000 feet, of an
approximate value of $1,000,000,0c00o—that is to say, more than the
total value of the crop of wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, cotton and
tobacco produced in the United States, and thirty-three per cent.
more than the value of all exportations of every kind from that
great country.

It is hardly conceivable and yet it is true, that no forest-adminis-
tration has been charged with securing intelligent management of
this colossal property. It has been truly said that the real riches
of a country are not in its deposits of the precious metals, but in
its forests, and yet, thanks to the folly of the Government of the
United States, these fruitful sources of public wealth have been
allowed to perish without any thought beyond the morrow.

Some idea of the enormous traffic which springs from the forests of
the United States may be gathered, perhaps, from the fact that in
Chicago alone the 2,000,000,000 feet of wood and lumber which
are handled in that market represent 1,000 car-loads for every
working day in the year. If all the forest-products of the United
States were moved by rail, we should have a train equal in length
to eleven times the circle of the globe at the point of its greatest
diameter. The northern states alone produce two-thirds of this
lumber each year, or about 20,000,000,000 feet, worth three hun-
dred millions of dollars. This represents a weight of 500,000,000
tons, and would require a fleet of 500,000 vessels, each of 1,000
tons burden, to transport it—that is, a tonnage equal to twice the
fleets of the entire world.

This forest-wealth of the United States has been so used and
abused that already the richest forests have disappeared. The
pines of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, once considered inex-
haustible, exist no longer. They have been exterminated ; and
this is readily understood when it is remembered that a single mill
in this region has cut half a million feet a day, and that the
capacity of all the mills of the United States is more than 60,000-
000,000 feet a year. According to the Census report, there were in
1880, 55,175,000,000 feet of pine standing. Since that time

72

45,475,000,000 have been cut, so that in all the northern part of the
United States there is now only two years’ supply of white pine of
the best quality left, with more or less pine of inferior quality.
The improvidence of the Government, and the insatiate desire to
grow rich rapidly, have brought our neighbors’ forests into this
condition. It seems almost incomprehensible that a nation so in-
telligent and practical can allow itself to be despoiled of one of the
principal sources of national wealth while it was so easy to render
it perpetually productive.

And what have we done ourselves here in Canada? Have we
not committed the same blunders? Has not our public domain
been pillaged also? How many millions have been sent from Can-
ada during the last fifty years to enrich the people of London ?
Our pine-forests have nearly disappeared. The timber of which
we were once so proud has vanished. The pine, which is now found
only between the Red River at the west and Migen at the east,
does not extend north of the forty-ninth degree of latitude in the
valley of the Ottawa, and the fifty-second degree in the region of
Albany Lake. There is none north of Lake Superior. Our best
pine-forests were in the valleys of the Ottawa, of the San Maurice,
of the Saguenay and their tributaries. All these have been
destroyed, and now it is necessary to go 300 miles from Ottawa to
the head-waters of the San Maurice and to Lake St. John to find
lumbermen at work. All that immense forest-territory of the
province of Quebec, of more than 100,000 square miles area, would
represent to-day hundreds of millions if the state had managed it
intelligently. But here, as in the United States, every one sup-
posed our forests were inexhaustible. They have been cut without
pity and without rest.

The Government was deaf to every appeal to protect the public
forests as long as a few hundred thousand dollars, derived from the
forest, was available to make up the deficit of the general adminis-
tration. ‘The sale of limits made often to political partisans, most
often fraudulently and at prices absolutely ridiculous, have almost
entirely ruined our forests. Great bodies of timber have been
sacrificed at ridiculous prices in time of panic when there was no
demand for timber. In 1844 the Government, among other limits,
sold one of 100 square miles for $4 a square mile—that is to say,
at the rate of two acres for one cent. Is it possible to imagine
any greater folly in the administration of Government affairs ?
The results of these wasteful methods are apparent. The cut of
pine east of Montreal, which amounted two years ago to 250,000,-

73

000 feet; has now fallen to 25,000,coo—that is to say, to an annual
output of only ten per cent. of the former production—and this for
the excellent reason that there is no more pine to cut in that re-
gion. It is the price of the ruin of the forest-capital of the prov-
ince which the government of Quebec has received and still receives
every year. We have obtained as a gift from our fathers a forest-
domain unequaled inthe world. It was able every year to produce
an enormous revenue, sufficient, if properly administered, to meet
all the expenses of the state. And we have not been sufficiently
intelligent to administer this property in such a way as to perpetu-
ate the revenue for our children. On the contrary, without regard
to the most elementary rules of forest culture, we have alienated the
forest-domain by throwing it open to a crowd of greedy speculators
whose only aim has been to destroy it entirely. Such crimi-
nal conduct merits the contempt and reproof of the whole world.
The province of Quebec is not alone culpable. Ontario, New
Brunswick, Newfoundiand are even worse off than we are, and
when the fotest-resources of the Canadian confederation are exam-
ined, it is only too apparent that in a comparatively short time we
shall be obliged to depend for our timber upon other provinces.
British Columbia, on the Pacific side of the continent, is well
wooded, but her forests are too remote to be of practical value to
us here in the east. The timber supply of British Columbia will
be needed by her own people and by those of the north-west. Her
timber can be sent to Australia, California and South America
more advantageously than ‘to us here. From the Rocky Moun-
tains to Lake Superior timberis scarce. It is disappearing rapidly
in Ontario ; and in the maritime provinces and in all the eastern
counties consumption is increasing and the supply is disappearing
very rapidly.

It is evident, then, that the province of Quebec must adopt at
once the methods which are everywhere recognized as necessary to
stop this destruction and assure by means of an intelligent admin-
istration the perpetuity of what remains of our forest-domain. It
is necessary, in a word, to inaugurate here a system of regular
cutting such as is practiced in France, Germany and other civil-
ized countries, where not only the annual output is preserved, but
the extent and value of the forests are steadily increased. The
government of Quebec should, in order to preserve its forest-
domain and increase for all time its productive capacity, adopt the
following plan :

First. It should divide the public domain into five great forest-

74

regions—namely, Ottawa, San Maurice, Saguenay, the counties of
the east and Gaspé—and place each under the direction of a
general forest-officer. Each of these forest-officers should then
divide his region into as many forests as there are distinct regions,
each composing a certain number of limits.

Each forest should be worked, under the direction of a forest-
officer of the region, by a timber-merchant, owner of a saw-mill,
and such a forest should be cut once in every twenty years or more,
- according to the nature of the soil and the trees which are found
in it. In this way every year a twentieth part only of the forest
would be worked; the remaining ninety-five per cent. should be left
to its natural growth and protected against all inroads from the
lumberman or his employees. By only cutting each year trees
which have arrived at their full value, those preserved would be
ready for the axe twenty years after. In this way a forest will
perpetuate itself indefinitely, yielding constantly an equal and
regular annual product without deterioration.

Second. Every year the Government should determine what
will be the amount of timber called for by the needs of commerce in
order to avoid the over-stocking of the market and the commercial
disasters which result: from over-production and the consequent
shrinking in value of forest- products.

Third. As is well known, the squaring of timber in the woods,
by which the soil is covered with chips, is an imminent cause of
fire, and a third of the wood moreover is lost by this means. The
Government should demand that all trees should be sawed, not
hewn, or floated down the streams in convenient lengths to points
of shipment.

Fourth; The Government should exercise an intelligent inspec-
tion over the operations of lumbermen, and it should be the duty
of the general forest-guards of each region to mark themselves, or
to have marked by their assistants, all trees to be cut or to be
reserved in the annual cutting.

Fifth. The Government should send to the Forest-School at
Nancy a certain number of young men who, having followed the
course there in forest-studies, would be fitted later to assume the
direction of our woods and forests.

Sixth. As the management of our woods and forests belongs to
the department of the Minister of Agriculture, the general forest-
guards should be placed under the direction of that officer in all
matters relating to the valuation and exploitation of the forest-
domain.

75

It will, perhaps, be argued that these indispensable forms will
entail serious expenses on the Government. This is a mistake.
It is simply a redistribution of duties and a transfer of the Govern-
ment employees, which is necessary in order to put this system in
operation. And after all, a forest-domain of 50,000 square miles is
well worth the trouble and expense of some attention. It pro-
duces annually something like 400,000,000 feet of pine and 110,000,-
ooo feet of spruce, besides 37,000,000 feet of red and white pine tim-
ber, 600,000 feet of hard wood, 4,500,000 railway ties, besides vast
quantities of cedar, tamarack and 5,000,000 feet of fire-wood ; the
whole producing a revenue to the provine of a million dollars.
The total annual forest-product for all Canada amounts to $25,-
000,000, and this will double certainly as wood becomes rarer in
the United States. Ina few years from now the province of Que-
bec will obtain from her forests a revenue sufficient nearly to meet
all her expenses, provided an intelligent forest-administration can
be established. We still have in our forests and in our waste land
hundreds of millions of dollars with which can be assured the
greatest prosperity of the province, but it is necessary that the
men who govern us should realize the urgent necessity of admin-
istering wisely this magnificent inheritence upon which depends
the future prosperity of the nation. And especially is it necessary
that they consider the rights of the coming generation and deter-
mine to protect this inheritance against the attacks of the short-
sighted and thoughtless.

EFFECT OF FOREST-MISMANAGEMENT ON
ORCHARDS.

B. E. FERNOwW, CHIEF OF THE U. S. ForESTRY DIVISION,
WASHINGTON, D. C.

I do not intend here to rehearse the influence which the forest
exerts upon fruit culture by reason of its protection against cold
and hot winds. The value of a properly disposed shelter-belt for
the orchard is well understood. It was by opening up the country
to the sweep of the northern winds that the cultivation of the
olive in northern France was made impossible, and other such re-

76

sults of injudicious deforestation of local as well as general char-
acter, are on record. I wish now to show that not deforestation, but
the mere mismanagement of the forest in the way of leaving large
parts of felled trees in the woods and in allowing fires to run
through the woods, works injury not only to the forest itself, but
to the neighboring orchard. It is well known that a large propor-
tion of the beetle larvee which infest living trees cannot exist in a
thoroughly healthy and vigorously growing tree; those larvee in
particular which are found in the cambium layer between the
wood and the bark would be drowned in the sap of healthy trees.
They are, therefore, mostly found in those trees which, for some
reason or other, are less vigorous or on the road to decay. When
a fire has run through a pine forest, or when a leaf-destroying
caterpillar has ravaged the foliage and thus reduced the vigor of
the trees, these beetles find a most favorable breeding place in the
weakened trees, and their larvee multiply rapidly and finish the
work of destruction in a short time. For this reason it is often
necessary to cut millions of feet of lumber and cordwood at once,
or it will be entirely ruined. While, then, these little insects,
belonging to the families Bostrichidze and Scolytide, are great en-
emies to the forest itself, there is no doubt that many of the insects
injurious to our fruit and shade trees find their most favorable
breeding place in the trunks and limbs of the scorched or freshly
felled trees. The frequent forest fires and the failure of the farmer
and lumberman in disposing of large parts of the felled trees must
be considered as among the principal causes of the prevalence in
North America of these insect borers. The horticulturist may
destroy the borers in his orchard or vineyard, but the mismanaged
and maltreated forest makes a fertile breeding ground for them and
replaces those destroyed by the watchful orchardist.

To substantiate the assertion, the following examples may be
cited :

One of the most dangerous enemies of the orchard, the Flat-
headed borer (Chrysobothris femorata), is found to breed in enor-
mous numbers within the trunks of various forest trees that have
been injured by fire.

The Oak-pruner (Elaphidium parallelum), which does consider-
able injury to apple trees, is found under the bark and in the wood
of oak, hickory, elm and other forest trees that have been recently
felled and left in the woods, or that have been reduced in vigor by
fires.

77

Several other species of the same family, among which are
Prionus laticollis, the broad-necked Grape-root borer and others,
often injurious to the roots of the grape vine, breed in the trunks
and stumps of forest trees, especially oak. elidnota punctata, a
large Scarabzeid beetle, which destroys the foliage of the grape
vine, comes from the same breeding place.

One of the dangerous enemies to cultivated blackberry bushes,
Agrilus rujficollis, the red-necked blackberry borer, preferably
breeds and multiplies in the wild blackberry and raspberry bushes
that have been scorched by fires. Amphicerus bicaudatus, the
apple-twig borer, very injurious to apple and other orchard trees
by boring in the twigs, breeds in the roots of the Smz/ax vines
which have been killed by fire.

The various species of bark-borers of the Scolytus family, which
attack orchard and shade trees, could be readily kept in check, but
for the fact that they breed unmolested and multiply in fallen for-
est trees. Such are the Pear-borer, Xyleborus Pyri, the Pear-
blight Scolytus, Phlacotribus liminaris, and the Apple Tomicus,
Monarthrum Mali. This list of injurious insects, which find most
favorable conditions for development in the mismanaged forest and
threaten the orchard, vineyard, park and plantation, could no
doubt be largely extended.

It would be difficult to tell what in amount the loss from these
borers may be. We have learned that insect ravages entail the
loss of millions. Thus the loss from the Cotton worm was esti-
mated in one year at almost $30,000,000. “And when we consider
that the tree-borer does not destroy the year’s crop only, but the
crop-bearing tree itself, the accumulation of many year’s growth
and all the labor spent on it, we may readily see that, in proportion
to the extent of orchards and vineyards, the loss must be consid-
erable.

We have here another illustration that all things in nature have
their relation, and that if we interfere with their adjustment we
are sure to throw them out of balance and suffer accordingly. We
have another lesson which teaches that cultural and forest condi-
tions are closely related to each other, and that, as we disregard
proper forest management in utilizing nature’s gifts, we must bear
the consequences in other directions.

FORESTRY AT THE DOMINION EXPERIMENTAL
FARMS.

The Experimental Farm System has only been in operation a
little more than three years, including the work of organization.
The Farms are five in number, at Nappan, N. S., the central one
at Ottawa (whence the Reports of the others are disseminated in
the same manner as those of the Agricultural Experimental Sta-
tions of the United States), at Brandon, Man., at Indian Head,
N. W. T., and at Agassiz, B. C. Brandon and Indian Head have
each a section of land; Agassiz and Nappan each three hundred
acres ; while the Ottawa farm, serving for Ontario and Quebec,
has four hundred and sixty-seven acres.

The central farm began its operations in the spring of 1887 ;
Nappan, Brandon and Indian Head following in 1888; while
Agassiz was not organized till 1889.

With such an expanse of territory, the needs are exceedingly
varied, and therefore the range of useful knowledge to be obtained
is much widened. So far it has been the aim of the management
of the central farm to supply such trees as are in the judgment of
competent men best suited to the conditions of soil and climate
at these different points. Reliable reports from the superintendents
of the branch farms will facilitate the speedy introduction of suit-
able trees to the different portions of the Dominion, especially to
the wind-swept prairie regions of Manitoba and the northwest.

One of the permanent features in forestry on the farm at Ot-
tawa is the planting of a belt of trees on the north and west sides,
made up of different varieties grouped in blocks for comparison.
Many of these clumps are planted in irregular forms, so arranged
as to overlap each other, which overcomes the stiff appearance
given by planting in squares. The belt is about one hundred and
fifty feet wide ; the first ten rows on the west being five feet apart,
and the rest ten feet apart each way. This has been done to ascer-
tain the relative advantage of close or wide planting. Careful records
of the age at planting, the annual growth thereafter, and other
necessary particulars are taken, and will be reported as soon as
practicable. There are in this belt about eight thousand trees,
made up of the following varieties: conifers; Scotch pine, white
pine, Riga pine, Austrian pine, Norway, white and blue spruce,
hemlock, arbor vite, European and American larch; deciduous
trees ; red, white and burr oak, sugar maple, soft maple, Norway,

79

red and Negurdo maple, white, yellow and canoe birch, white
elm from Manitoba, native white and red elm (a. fu/va), Rock elms
(u. racemosa), black ash (f. sambucifolia,) green (f. viridis), red
(f. pubescens), white (f. Americana), European ash (/. excelsior),
black walnut, butternut, European alder, hickory, Lees catalpa,
Japan catalpa (e. Awmferi), hardy catalpa (c. speciosa), Russian
mulberry, yellow locust, honey locust, black cherry, European
and American mountain ash, sycamore, beech and horse chestnut.

Thus far it is premature to speak of results, yet failure in some
cases is so emphatic as to force conclusions ; for instance, the catal-
pas, speciosa not excepted, appear to be worthless, and will cer-
tainly never make timber trees in the vicinity of Ottawa. Rus-
sian mulberry, honey locust and American sycamore suffer slightly.
Black. walnut promises to succeed, and we have trees three years
from seed six to seven feet in height. Negurdo maple, Russian
mulberry and yellow locust are about equally rapid growers, and
lead all others in the belt, though for economic value I think with
Prof. Lazenby that there are few trees equal to the white ash.

Besides this belt another is planted with the above varieties and
a number of hardy shrubs. Here the varieties are planted in
rows to admit of cultivation, but indiscriminately mingled some-
what after forest conditions, and will afford experience from an-
other aspect. One of the initiatory steps at the central farm was to
obtain a liberal collection of the seeds of Rocky Mountain and Euro-
pean conifers, and as a product from these seeds we transplanted
from seed beds last Spring about 175,000 plants or young seedlings,
made up of Riga, Scotch, Austrian, stone and ponderosa, or yel-
low, pine, Douglas, blue, Norway and white spruce. These will
be distributed, when of proper size, to the branch farms and other
experimenters, who will give us careful returns. Our stock was
also increased by importations of seedling deciduous and coni-
ferous trees from Europe, which are being distributed to those
points which seem best adapted to their culture.

In order to encourage tree-growing in the northwest territories,
the Minister of Agriculture caused to be distributed free from the
central farm to voluntary applicants last spring, 100,000 forest
tree seedlings, one hundred trees going to each individual, to-
gether with instructions for planting and after-care. It will be
seen by this arrangement that provisions were made for one thous-
and packages. The applications exceeded the supply by fifteen
hundred, showing that there was no lack of interest. Each pack-

So

age was made up in varying quantities of the following varieties :
white ash, green ash, box elder, soft maple, hard maple, white
elm, honey locust, black locust, black walnut, butternut, Russian
mulberry, black cherry, cottonwood, sycamore, linden, Kentucky
coffee tree, red cedar and wild olive (Zlcagnus angustifolia). This
distribution covered a very wide territory, and the results cannot
fail to be valuable. In addition to this, the C. P. R. gardens,
twenty-five in number, situated along the main line west of Win-
nipeg, have been supplied the past two years by collections of
trees from the Ottawa farm, and it is upon these trees that the
results as given in the telegram read by Mr. Joly last night are
obtained. The Indian and police stations, in the far north and
west, have for the past two years received liberal collections of the
hardier trees and shrubs from the farm at Ottawa, with such sug-
gestions for their care and culture as their particular locations
seemed to demand.

Arrangements are being made to continue the work of distribu-
tion on a larger scale the coming year, and it is hoped that this
slight inducement will enable and encourage settlers in the colder
parts of Canada to select such varieties as are best adapted to their
conditions, and assist in establishing a limited culture of fruits in
sections now deemed unsuitable.

An important point, very often overlooked by northern planters,
is the careful selection of the hardiest forms of each species. This
is well illustrated in the difference between the Ohio box elder and ~
that grown at Winnipeg. While the former is not as hardy at
Ottawa as catalpa, the latter is one of a‘ few trees that came
through uninjured at Indian Head, N. W. T., last winter, some of
the others being Manitoba elm, Siberian pea tree (Cavagana arbor-
escus), and the so-called Russian wild olive (Eleagnus angustifo-
fia). The same is true, though in a less marked degree, of the
Manitoba ash and elm, as compared with the same botanical
species here. While our common form was injured at Indian
Head, the native of Manitoba came through in good condition.
The black walnut of Minnesota and Dakota, and Kentucky coffee
tree of central and northern Iowa, are essentially hardier than
their southern relatives, and it should be our aim in this region to
obtain seeds from trees at the northern limits of their native
habitats.

8I

FORESTRY ON THE WESTERN PLAINS OF
CANADA.

By Wm. SAUNDERS, DIRECTOR OF EXPERIMENTAL FARMS,
OTTAWA.

Experiments in tree planting were begun at all five government
farms as soon as possible after they were located, but on those
in Manitoba and the North-West Territories this work has been
conducted on a more extensive scale than elsewhere, as the need
of forest shelter is much more keenly felt in the prairie districts.
Work was begun on the farm at Indian Head, N. W. T., during
the summer of 1887, and the first trees were planted in the spring
of 1888, about 20,000 in all, consisting of a large number of varie-
ties. This farm is a section of bare prairie land of 680 acres with-
out any shelter whatever.’ In the spring of 1889 another consign-
ment of about 12,000 was forwarded, and during the present
season a few thousand more have been sent. A considerable
quantity of seed of the box elder, with a smaller proportion of
white ash and American elm has been sown each season, and thus
more than 50,000 seedlings have been added to the stock. A por-
tion of these seedlings have been distributed among the settlers in
the neighborhood of the farm, but the larger part has been planted
in shelter belts and forest clumps on the farm.

The Brandon, Man., farm was selected during the summer of
1888, and tree planting was begun there in the spring of 1889.
About 20,000 trees were sent that year and ten or twelve thou-
sand more in 1890. <A large number of seedlings of box elder, ash,
and elm have also been grown there during both these seasons.
The Brandon farm is situated partly in the valley of the Assini-
boine River and partly on the bluffs which form the northern
boundary of that valley. This farm is mostly prairie, but in the
ravines in the bluffs, and also on the face of the bluffs there are
large patches of scrub, consisting of scrub oak, hazel, elaagnus
and other low bushes, while near the river bank there is a small
grove of elm, ash, and box elder trees, with undergrowth of
willow, rose, etc. The land on these two farms is varied as to
exposure, while the soil and the climatic conditions by which they
are surrounded are such as to involve most of the difficulties which
stand in the way of tree growing in the better farming districts in
the Canadian Northwest.

82

During the spring of 1889, many packages of trees were sent to
different parts of the Northwest plains for test, and this work has
been continued on a larger scale during the past season. The
distribution outside of the experimental farms in 18go0 consisted
of 130,000 seedling trees of one and two years’ growth, which were
sent by mail in 1300 packages of 100 each to as many different
points, while larger bundles were forwarded by express to twenty-
five of the experimental gardens on the line of the Canadian Paci-
fic Railway from Moose Jaw to Calgary, to most of the agencies
on the Indian Reserves, and the chief stations of the mounted police.
By these several methods, trees have been distributed for test over
the whole area from the eastern part of Manitoba to the western
extremity of the great plains of the Territories and along the foot-
hills of the Rocky Mountains. On the Indian Head farm trees
have had the test of two winters and three summers; on the
Brandon Farm and ata few other points, including about twenty
stations on the Canadian Pacific Railway, we have the results of
one winter and two summers; while at a very large number of
other points the summer draught and heat is the only test the trees
have yet been subject to. This latter, however, is no mean test,
for dry weather will often cause the death of more trees than will
the cold weather of winter.

The results of the tests on the experimental farms have been
carefully noted each year, but the experience gained is too limited
as yet to admit of very positive statements regarding many varie-
ties of trees under trial. The following notes may be of some
interest.

Box elder, Megundo aceroides.—This tree promises ‘to be the
most valuable of all forest trees for the Western Plains, adapting
itself to all conditions of climate and situation, and making thrifty
growth under trying circumstances. No tree is so universally suc-
cessful, but to get the best results the seedlings should be grown
from seed collected from trees growing on the river banks in Mani-
toba or the Territories. If grown from Eastern seed the young
trees are often partly winter-killed. In three or four years from
the time of sowing the seed, this tree will usually attain a height
of from five to seven feet, with a nice bushy head, and after that
the growth is quite rapid. é

Among the trees which promise to rank next in value are the
American elm and white ash, when grown from Manitoba seed,
but these often prove more or less tender when grown from seed

83

produced in Ontario or the Western States. The native poplars
and some of the willows also make fine growth and aid materially
in the formation of shelter belts ; some of the Russian poplars have
also succeeded very well, notably Populus petrovska, certinensis,
bertolinus and bolleana; salix laurifolia is also valuable. The
American and European mountain ash, yellow birch, European
white birch, and the variety of white birch, known as the czt-
leaved, have also proved hardy as far as they have been tried. Of
the maples, the only ones which have succeed thus far are the sil-
ver-leaved, Acer dasycarpum, and the Norway maple, Acer plata-
noides, and these are only partially successful. The Siberian
maple, Acer ginuala, has proven hardy at the Indian Head Farm,

but this will rank rather as a shrub than a tree.

Among the evergreens the white spruce, transplanted from the
sandy plains near Carberry, Manitoba, or the spruce from the foot-
hills of the Rocky Mountains, succeed best. The Scotch fir and
the European mountain pine are also hardy in many places, endur-
ing the low temperatures of the winter better than the drying winds
and hot weather of the summer months. The white spruce of the
East, Norway spruce, arbor vite, Austrian pine, red cedar and
European larches have failed in most localities in the Territories,
but many of them have survived and made a little growth in some
places in Manitoba. ‘The same may be said of the bass-wood,
European ash and Russian mulberry. The attempts to grow the
sugar and red maples, sycamore, black locust, butternut, black
walnut and Western catalpa have so far been unsuccessful.

Among the most valuable shrubs useful for ornamental purposes
and as undergrowth, are the several native willows, the wolf wil-
low, Ll@agnus argentea, the native wild cherry, Saskafon7, and
hazel, to which may be added the Siberian pea, Cavagana arbores-
cens, Russian olive, and the several" varieties of lilac. The wild
rose also serves a similar purpose, and the Rosa sugosa from Japan,
which has proved hardy and valuable at Indian Head.

By the free use of the trees and shrubs named, effective shelter
belts and forest clumps can in a few years be produced on the
Northwest plains, which will help to break the force of the winds
and give a home-like beauty to the bare prairie. When sufficient
time has elapsed to allow of more extended testing, many valuable
additions will do doubt be made to the list now given.

84

MINNESOTA WOODSMEN.

H. B. Ayres, NORTHERN PACIFIC JUNCTION, MINN.

[ Now OF THE ForREstrRY Driy., DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D. C.]

The forest-region of Minnesota has an area of some 39,000
square miles, extending from the Canadian boundary southward
to an indefinite border, from the St. Croix river near Rush City,
westward, near Princeton, St. Cloud and Alexandria, to within a few
miles of Fergus Falls, thence northward near Red Lake Falls to
the forty-ninth parallel.

Logging operations have been continuous in this region for more
than thirty years. During the season of 1889-90, 1,174,607,000
feet, board measure, of pine log timber were cut within this area.
To cut and bank this timber required the work of 14,780 men,
classified as follows : 118 superintendents, 150 cruisers, 354 scalers,
472 foremen, 1888 sawyers, 472 sled tenders, 2,596 teamsters,
3,776 swampers, 1888 chain tenders, 994 road monkeys, 472
landing men, 118 blacksmiths, 118 handy men, 472 cooks, 472
cookees, and 472 stable boys. Add to this number of men
employed in logging the low estimate of 5,000 men working on
ties, piles, poles, and cordwood, we have an army of at least 20,000
men, finding comfortable quarters and good pay, six months of the
year, cutting and hauling crude forest-products to market.

Of these men but one class—synonomously called cruisers, ex-
plorers, examiners. inspectors, or woodsmen—need necessarily be
woodsmen in the full sense of thoroughly knowing the woods. In
designing and planning logging operations, the superintendent,
especially if he is putting in any considerable amount of timber,
needs assistants who know all about lines, corners, topography,
timber, roads, and road making, the driving stream, and clearing
it, and have a good general knowledge of every work connected
with logging. ‘These examine the tracts to be cut, estimate the
amount and quality of timber, map the land, showing location of
timber, with general topography, lay out roads, locate buildings
and landings, and after cutting has commenced see that everything
is properly done ; that all the marketable timber is taken, that no
worthless logs are hauled, that no timber is wasted in cutting, that
the logs are being properly landed and correctly marked, stamped
and scaled. Where men of this class are employed by land
owners, timbering and logging is but part of their work ; for they

85

are to careiully map the land in detail ona scale usually not less
than four inches to the mile, showing all topographical features,
especially streams, lakes, marshes, hills, the various species of
trees, size, condition and amount of each kind, undergrowth, bush,
grass, liability to fire and trespass, cost of clearing, cost and extent
-of drainage, and the grade of each tract according to its desirability
for farming purposes.

The life of these men is one of continuous liability to exposure,
hardship, and severe physical labor, and requires, besides the best
of physical constitutions, mature and independent judgment, with
unusual fidelity and discretion.

At work, these men move in parties of from two to six, carrying
tent, cooking utensils and provisions on their backs. Jn summer,
a party of four can carry their complete outfit for three weeks’
work. Canoeing along the water courses, where available, is
a great convenience, and is hailed with delight by all asa desir-
able change from the tiresome monotony of packing.

Throughout this region is a great lack of sentiment and caution
against starting forest fires. Camp fires so often die out without
spreading, or spread unseen by the camper, after he has moved
away, that habitual. carelessness is the rule even among men con-
sidered thoughtful.

FORESTS IN THEIR RELATION TO THE PUBLIC
HEALTH.

Dr. PETER H. Bryck, TORONTO, SECRETARY ONTARIO BOARD
OF HEALTH.

From the earliest times that the phenomena of climate have
been observed, we have abundant evidence that the presence or
absence of forests has been remarked as producing influences,
which have had their effects upon the salubrity of different
localities ; and, in the warmer countries of Southern Europe and
Asia, the deities of the woods and groves stood in high favor with
their devoted worshippers.

The people of more recent centuries, too, have not been blind to
the protective influence of forests; but it has, until very recent

86

years, been difficult for the energetic settlers who have had to hew
out for themselves homes from the forest primeval, to view the
sturdy forest trees in any other light than that of their natural
enemies.

Indeed, it yet seems hard for us, as we visit our frontier settle-
ments and see the small clearances and limited sources of income
which the settler possesses, not to sympathise with him in his
struggle for existence, and to view with calm indifference the
wanton destruction of the woods, which in older settled portions o
the continent, are coming to be looked upon with a regard akin to
reverence. ‘To most of us the value of our forests, as direct
revenue producers, must naturally appeal first, while to many
others their indirect value from the influence they exert on agri-
cultural productiveness will appear important; but few, indeed,
have carefully considered how far-reaching are the influences
which their existence or their non-existence may exert upon the
public health. Some few months ago I had the honor to briefly
introduce the subject of ‘‘The Preservation of our Forests a
National Sanitary Need’’ to the International Conference of State
Boards of Health then in session at Nashville, Tenn., at a time
when the levees of the Mississippi were in danger, and when in
some of the Gulf States, destruction had visited extensive areas of
country. ‘The Conference, and notably those delegates from the
South-Western States, realizing the importance of the matter,
adopted strong resolutions expressing their views and forwarded
them to Federal and State authorities, urging the adoption of such
legislation as would encourage tree-planting in suitable localities
over the continent, and thereby serve to mitigate in some degree
that destruction of life and property from floods and cyclones, due
in large measure, we believe, to the absence of adequate forests on
the head waters of many of our largest rivers, and upon the thou-
sands of miles of prairies popularly spoken of as treeless.

To further show its active interest in the important work of
which this meeting is the exponent, the Conference, through its
president, has requested me to attend here as its delegate, and lend
to those who are engaged in this praiseworthy work the support
of our Association, whose members comprise the most active and
prominent sanitarians of the various states and provinces on the
continent. In the name, therefore, of the International Conference
of State Boards, I am present to-day to offer this assembled
Congrees greeting, and to offer the active support of this conference

87

of health officers in all measures tending to the abatement, or, at
least, the mitigation of those evils which are unfortunately too
apparent to all of us.

Engaged some fourteen years ago in lecturiug on chemistry
and meteorology to the students of the Agricultural College of
Ontario, I became greatly interested in the influence on organic
vegetable life, of the amounts of rainfall during the months of
germination and growth; and being anxious to determine, if
possible, the truth of the theoretical teachings of chemical physics,
as regards the relationships between soils, trees, and the circum-
ambient atmosphere, I made a careful and laborious study of the
tables of the Toronto observatory, beginning with 1840, and for
purposes of comparison took the semi-decades of 1840-45, 1850-55,
1860-65, 1870-75.

From the tables which were published at the time in a paper
read before the Canadian Institute, several results became apparent.

ToTaL, SNOW AND RAIN.

1840-44 ? ; : ; . 2a? Inches.
1850-54 : : : : . 164.684 st
1860-64 : i , , « , + LOG3S7 oe
1870-74 , » 4 52,02 a

or, between the first oe fare prada there was a total decrease
of 63.95 inches, or a yearly difference of 12.79.

The total moisture is divided as follows:

TOTAL RAIN FALL.

1840-44 : : : ; . IgtI.020 inches.
1850-54 : : : ; 2. ¥37:009 "
1860-64 f ; ; ; . .. 131:706 rt
1870-74 113.150 s

or, between the Seat an forivth pesinds there was a total decrease
of 77.87 inches, or a yearly difference of 15.35 inches.

ToTAL SNow FALL (12 inches snow, one inch rain.)

1840-44 ; , ; ; »), 322.90 7inches.
1850-54 : F ? ; ee me "
1860-64 ‘ ; i : - 344.38
1870-74 473-83 4

or, between the first Be arth patiata Sica was a total difference
of 151.13 inches, or a yearly increase of 12.59 inches.
These calculations agree exactly with theory. In comparing

88

the individual quarters of each period, I arrived at the following
results: March has remained much the same still; with April is
found a decrease of more than % inch, a decrease that increases
with each month until September, thus :—

April, July, August,
May, June, September.
1840-44 ; ‘ ‘ So JA 68.101
1850-54 ‘ ; : - - 40.195 48.625
1860-64 : : ‘ : + i R2sgA2 45.617
1870-74 ' ‘ ae, - 34.670 35.14

The significance of this unpleasant change must be evident to
all. The average temperature of the two months of germination
is lower now than it was forty years ago. Thus :—

March. April. May.
1840-44 : , 4 on 20-884 A202. ORI ee
1850-54 : ; _ » £30524... 40,064 +. 50:08
1860-64 . : , ., 20:02”. A080 * 5 20ee
1870-74 ; ; . ») 297,24) AOE - oeeeae

This undoubted fact causes what is termed a late spring, the pe-
riod for growth and development of the plant being shorter than
formerly. The temperature of May, the first month of real
growth, is now warmer than formerly, by an average of nearly
two degrees. The growth is thus apparently forced unnaturally
to make up for loss in April, but the attempt is rendered futile by
an undue dryness, the rainfall in May having been :—

1840-44 : : : ; ; 15.015 inches
1850-54 : : ‘ : ; 13.675 es
1860-64 ; : ; hoa 14.055 fe
1870-74. 8.640 x

I shall only say here that it is apparent that if the:period of
germination is made later in Ontario by April becoming colder,
and if the month of May is notably hotter and drier, then the
normal development of plants is very materially affected, and
results in greatly reduced arboricultural returns. It will further
be manifest, however, that those causes, whether of damp soil,
cold winds or excessive heat, which are inimical to normal or
healthy plant growth, may become the conditions favoring the oper-
ation of other influences inimical to plant life, such as vegetable
parasites, the poisonous effects of the complex organic products of
an aerobic bacterial life in imperfectly aerated soils, of insects,
ete., etc. I cannot forbear illustrating this point by referring to a

89

recent paper by Prof. H. Marshall Ward, in the proceedings of the
Royal Society, ‘‘On Some Relations between Host and Parasite in
certain Epidemic Diseases of Plants.’’

He points out what would seem self-evident, ‘‘that a plant may
vary within very wide limits of the condition we term health.”’
We may, for instance, having a herbaceous plant growing under a
high July temperature with an abundance of solar light, when
suddenly the temperature falls, rain sets in and the weather remains
cloudy for days. Transpiration through the leaves being almost
stopped the plant becomes suffused with water and the movements
of the absorbed gases are greatly retarded. Now to realize the ef-
fects, we have to recognize that the growth of the plant depends
upon a healthy condition of its sap, which contains corpuscles and
nutritive fluids, which constitute its circulatory system just as
much, and in the same sense, as the blood does in an animal.
Prof. Ward further points out that the life and growth of the plant
depend upon the absorption and assimilation of food, commonly
spoken of as metabolism. What thus goes on in the plant depends
upon the fact that the cell protoplasm absorbs oxygen brought to
it from the water of the soil and from the air, and this oxygen com-
bines with the various compounds contained in the protoplasm.
These bodies are thus broken up while others form new unions.
Complicated life movements are thus set up, and heat even is devel-
oped by the oxygen taking hold of the carbo-hydrates, as starch and
glucose, and by the nitrogen absorbed, certain nitrogenous com-
pounds often called, in medicine, the active principles of a plant,
as asparagin, etc., are found. A most interesting fact which finds
its parallel in the excessive development of acid compounds in the
blood of rheumatics and persons suffering from various other trou-:
bles, is found in the excessive formation, out of protoplasm, etc.,
when a lack of carbo-hydrates occurs in the plants, tissues and
sap, of organic acids (such as malic, oxalic, etc.) They are due
to incomplete oxidation and their variations in quantity depend
greatly on the activity of the metabolic processes and, therefore,
on the intensity of respiration.

Remembering that the carbo-hydrates are formed by carbon
dioxide and water meeting in the chlorophyll of the leaves and
other growing tissues, and that the activity of the chemical
changes depends largely upon certain rays of sunlight, we can in
some degree comprehend how the conditions, favorable to vigor-
ous plant life, must in a very special sense be the measure of

go

the resistance which any plant will make to injurious influences.
Here, again, we find a parallelism to the resistance which the ani-
mal organism offers to malign influences. Housed in dark work-
rooms and offices with limited supplies of fresh air or oxygen, we
have as a result imperfect assimilation or metabolism going on in
the blood and tissues, and so we find that the germs of disease in
the shape of vegetable parasites, as diphtheria, obtain an easy vic-
tory over debilitated and non-oxidized tissues.

Prof. Ward details at some length how the fungus Botrytis de-
velops on many plants, and points out that sunshine is wholly
unnecessary to its development, and that dull, damp weather and
a saturated atmosphere, so injurious to higher vegetation if pro-
longed and at a low temperature, are distinctly favorable to the
development of these fungi. It has been found further, that the
mycelium of the fungus develops a ferment—just, for instance, as
the diphtheritic microbe secretes a /ewcomaine, which acts as a
poison to the human system—and that the poison possesses the
property of swelling and dissolving cellulose, and further seems
to kill the protoplasm at the points where the fungus has made its
way into the cell-tissues of the plant. The action seems to be as-
sociated with the formation by the fungus of oxalic acid, which in
excess rapidly destroys protoplasm, and so acting like other acids,
causes the leaves of the plant to turn brown. ‘The result is analo-
gous to the effects seen, notably upon evergreens in the neighbor-
hood of brickyards, where, during the burning, sulphurous pro-
ducts are given off, which being oxidized in the atmosphere,
exert an acid action on the soft tissues of the growing wood.

Hence we see that whatever makes for normal growth and de-
velopment in plants tends equally to enable them to resist the
attacks of malign influences. We find further admirable exam-
ples of this in the wheat-rust, the potato blight, black-knot, etc.,
and in the conditions opposing or favoring their development.

We now naturally must turn and inquire whether we have any
analogous conditions which affect climate unfavorably as regards
the health of man, and if so, whether the same laws with regard
to increased liability to disease become operative. Let us examine
these physical influences and effects, which all will agree are
largely the result of deforesting. We are accustomed to the use
of the terms, (a) eguadle, limited, and insular, as applied to climates
with slight yearly and diurnal variations; and (b) to extreme,
excesstve, and continental, 7. e.,as applied to climates with great vari-

gi

ations. As producing these we speak of proximity to extensive
water surfaces, height above sea-level, etc. In addition to these
classes and others, such as latitude, nature of the soil, etc., we rec-
ognize that the covering of the soil plays an important function.
Herbage, as remarked by the latter Dr. Parkes, is always healthy,
but trees play by far the most important part of any kind of vegeta-
tion: (a) By keeping the ground cool through directly obstructing
the sun's rays. (4) By presenting in their leaves an immense evapor-
ating surface: (c) By this means taking up through the roots an
enormous amount of water, thereby preventing a stagnation of
ground water, and aiding healthy nitrification processes by the con-
stant introduction of oxygen intothe soil: (@) By thereby creating
a moist and cool atmosphere around the tree through evaporation,
while the same process prevents rapid chilling of the soil by radia-
tion, and at the same time, by the circulation of the sap, a rapid
chilling of the tender, exposed parts of the tree is obviated.

We thus have, through the beneficent agency of trees, an equa-
bility of climate, obtained in no other way, and in so far as this is
a factor favorable to health, we have a distinct advantage to be
gained by the preservation of trees.

On the other side, where forests are absent, the excessively rapid
changes in temperature, induced by rapid radiation of the earth’s
heat, affect most unfavorably those exposed to this rapid chilling,
and who may not have such strength and vigor of constitution, as
to resist its effects. The rapid abstraction of body heat is as inim-
ical to the health of man as of plants, and leaves persons ex-
posed to specific causes, which, under more favorable conditions,
are inoperative. Associate with these extreme daily-ranges of
temperature, frequent extremes of weather, as of winds and storms,
and we have exactly those physical conditions productive of inter-
nal congestions, inducing in some form or other, those diseases
which hold so prominent a place in our mortality tables. Take but
one disease, the causation of which has been long in dispute.
Surgeon Major Oldham, of the Indian Medical Service, insists that
malaria is due to cold. Logan, in a work on the climate of Chili,
tells us that malaria prevails on the table lands, while the lower
levels are free from it.

So much then on this part of the influence of trees in preventing
a rapid and extreme chilling of the soil and of the atmosphere con-
tiguous to it.

Speaking in the more exact language of to-day, I would say that

g2

these gentlemen ascribe to the moisture and cold a condition
whereby a cause is given an opportunity of becoming operative by
their depressing influences. In other words, the monad, the cause
of malaria having entered the system becomes capable under these
conditions, of multiplying and overcoming the resistance of the
body, just as Botrytis, under similar conditions, grows in plants.

Their influence in preventing these rapid and extreme changes,
applies likewise in the matter of forests lessening the changeabil-
ity and violence of the wind.

Dr. Charles Smart, Acting Surgeon General of the United States
army, made some careful experiments on the laws regulating radia-
tion of heat, and other relations thereto of wind and moisture. He
says there are three principal factors going to make up climate in
its relations to our animal heat, viz.: (1) The .absolute tempera-
ture of the air: (2) Its motion: (3) The moisture contained in it.
The effects of rapid radiation upon the human system, it is
assumed by a large school of etiologists, are so great as to produce
disorganization of the nervous mechanism that presides over the
temperature of the body, and this upsetting of the heat regulating
centre is likely to happen when the body has been subjected, dur-
ing the day, to extreme solar heats and fatigue, and is exposed
after sundown, and in the night to the tropical or sub-tropical
chill, which will be severe in proportion to the rapid cooling of
the ground, and the amount of vapor condensed in the lower
stratum of air.

How notable are the differences in the degrees of radiation of
heat from the earth is seen in the statement made by Tyndall in
connection with some radiation experiments published in detail
several years ago, to the effect that were it not for this invisible
gaseous envelope, with its moisture surrounding the earth, it
would long ago have radiated its heat to an extent totally destruc-
tive to the life of every living organism. All of us are familiar
with the old example of how on the desert plains, whose soil may
attain a temperature of 150° or more during the day, radiation
produces, after sundown, so rapid a cooling as to produce hoar-
frost as seen on the blankets of travelers who have laid down
to sleep on the sands in the open air.

In the matter of clothing our bodies we find the same laws in
operation, and protect ourselves by non-conducting flannel and
silk under garments.

It is well to recall what long ago was affirmed, that plagues were

93

stopped in their progression by forests, while there is indubitable
evidence going to show that belts of trees have effectually protected
communities against the emanations of malarious marshes.

I now propose to speak of an influence exerted by forests, which,
studied to some extent, has from the very nature of the case, been
but imperfectly appreciated. I refer to their influence, first upon
ground waters, and second, as related thereto, their influences
upon the processes of nitrification.

Our literature teems with illustrations of how the néver-ceasing
and uniform flow of springs celebrated for their curative properties,
and presided over by some old-time deity, has been largely de-
creased by the wanton destruction of the forests which protected
their sources; while in Ontario we behold the yearly decreasing
volume of the dozen or more splendid rivers, which taking their
rise in the central plateau, flow toward some one of the four great
lakes, Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Georgian Bay.

Towns and cities have sprung up on every side, and as their
needs have increased they have looked for local sources of public
water supplies, only to find their local streams uncertain in amount
during the later summer months, while their decreased volume has
resulted in a relatively increased pollution, which makes their use
as a source of public water supply, in many instances, quite out of
the question. All will see how serious such a matter becomes in
its relations to health. But this evil is much more far-reaching in
its effects. Assuming that under ordinary circumstances the
amount of water which finds:its way into the soil is fifty per cent.
of the totat annual rainfall, it will be apparent that if in all parts
of the Province, the snows, by the irregularities of the winter sea-
son, pass away rapidly, as they now frequently do during a thaw,
to the streams and rivers without being taken up by the then
frozen ground; if further during the spring the heat of the sun
causes so rapid a melting of the snow, as to make bare the fields
in a few days, and fill the streams to overflowing, there results an
incalculable loss to the underground sources of supply, which we
are coming to look upon more and mote as reservoirs, never-failing
in their abundance and perfect purity. What such losses mean
may perhaps be appreciated when I say that, assuming that six
inches of the twenty-five or thirty inches of annual rainfall are lost
by deforesting, we have a direct loss to our underground sources of
supply amounting to nearly 100,000,000 gallons per square mile of
surface. What this loss means to a city which has to look to

94

driven-wells for its supply will readily be understood, since the
more extended that the necessary gathering ground becomes the
more expensive does the matter become to the city, whose demands
are constantly increasing. Curious as it may appear we see on
every side two constantly attendant phenomena, yearly and in-
creasing needs of pure and sufficient water for our cities, and
yearly decreasing supplies as regards both purity and quantity.
Remembering that it is commonly agreed that more than eighty
per cent. of all our typhoid fever is produced through the medium
of drinking water ; that some 700 deaths and more than 10,000
cases occur in Ontario yearly, causing a loss of labor, of more than
300,000 days, and at least as much more unproductive expenditure
of capital, we can understand how from the health standpoint
alone deforesting has an economic importance, well-worthy of our
most serious consideration. The matter of the loss to the soil pro-
duced by the sudden disappearence of the water resulting from the
melting snows, and the equally useless and even destructive effects
of the torrents which are poured upon the baked and arid surfaces
of our flelds, by the thunder storms of summer, have another and
far-reaching influence in the matter of the retention and utilization
of the organic matters of the soil. The vegetable organic matters
of our virgin soils, the manures which are deposited on our agri-
cultural lands, depend alike for their beneficial effects, upon whether
they are quickly utilized by being converted through the action of
the bacteria of the soil into compounds assimilable by plants.
Now, upon the aeration and upon the moisture of the soil will
depend the rapidity and perfection of the nitrification process.
All are aware of how manured or meadow lands often seem to be
productive of but little results during a dry summer, and again of
how a soil cold and unaerated is equally barren of results. We
recognize the reasons of this as two-fold ; first, a lack of drainage,
whereby the water of the subsoil is prevented from being removed
in such a manner as to allow of aeration of the soil, and second,
from a lack of warmth of soil whereby the bacteria are able to
multiply rapidly. A soil left dry after the floods bakes and
becomes impervious to air; while its cold subsoil may be so
clogged with water, that the bacterial action which goes on is pro-
ductive only of those compounds which produced by microbes
multiplying in the absence of oxygen, are positively injurious to
plant-life. Now, when we refer to the effects of forests upon the
soil we find that, while they enable the water entangled in the in-

95

terstices ot the leaf-mould and humus, to pass silently into the
earth, protected against the scorching rays of the sun, they like-
wise act in the most positive manner as drains to large areas of
surrounding soil. Their taproots running downward often pierce
retentive clays, and the organic decomposition which goes on in
the root fibres creates innumerable drains by means of which sub-
soil waters are lowered to a notable degree. How great this
drainage becomes may be measured by the amount of water which
is evaporated by atree. Parkes and others have given us figures
showing an evaporation from the leaves of a tree as equal to two
and a half gallons daily, or as given by another equalling two
hundred and twelve inches of an annual rainfall. This evapora-
tion may be best comprehended by imagining it to be at least equal
to one foot of water from a surface equal to fifteen feet square.

This removal of ground water, viewed from the public health
standpoint, is most important. By drainage or a lowering of the
ground water, Dr. Buchanan, president of the Local Government
Board of England, has shown that in a few years, the death-rate
from consumption in drained towns was reduced nearly fifty per
cent.; while everyone is familiar with the story of how, at a Trap-
pist monastery situated on the Roman Campagna, eucalyptus trees
planted about it caused a disappearance of malaria from all the in-
mates except those whose rooms looked upon a damp inner court.
This phenomenon being observed, several eucalyptus trees were
planted in the court, when through the drying of the soil by their
roots, and a utilizing of the products of normal decomposition of
the soil, those conditions favorable to the development of the
malarial poison in the soil were removed and the disease dis-
appeared.

Those direct influences upon the public health, resulting from
floods and cyclones, are patent to all. If there ever were a year
when our legislators, our scientists, the people generally have been
made aware of how nature, ‘‘ ved zn tooth and claw,’’ avenges her-
self on those who despise her teachings, it is the year of grace 1890.
I had intended to have made a table showing the disasters from
these causes, as collated from the reports of the daily press, but I
have forborne. It would have recalled horrors useful only so far
as they teach us lessons. Modern science is striving with much
success to chain every force of nature to the car of human progress,
but it would seem as if the father of the gods resents the violation
of nature’s laws and this destruction of her sylvan fanes, while the

96

stealing of the fire of the gods by a modern Prometheus results as
of old only in the punishment of man. Svc ztur ad astra seems
ever to have as its refrain facilis descensus Averno, and to balance
the evil and good between these, the lumberman and agriculturist
who would subdue the earth, and those as the sanitarian, the
engineer and poet who would maintain inviolate nature’s gifts in
the trees, is equally the aim and we trust the attainable ideal of
such meetings as this.

FOREST PRESERVATION AND RESTORATION.

TJC. CoA ATE:

In Canada some boldness is needed to speak of forest preservation
and restoration. ‘To the settler who has yet his axe in hand to fell
the trees growing on the piece of land he intends to sow, the tree
is still an enemy, and you cannot make him believe that a day may
come when he will regret having treated it too long as such. ‘The
lumber merchant too, with forest limits apparently inexhaustible,
wants to make a fortune as quickly as he can, and turns a deaf ear
to economists who try to make him take thought for the coming
generation.

Many districts covered with forests thirty years ago, however,
contain no more firewood or timber. Very often, even agriculture
has not benefitted from a clearing of trees so foolishly made, because
it was made on land quite unfit for cultivation when once influence
of the ashes of the wood burnt during the clearing is exhausted. I
know whole regions which were cleared in that way by settlers
who had to desert the land soon after, because it was worth
nothing. Such districts would have been inexhaustible wood-
reserves for future generations, who during an almost endless
period would have found on them all the wood they wanted. To-
day these same districts are quite useless in every respect.

If we wish to be listened to by the farmer, who is always pre-
judiced against ideas quite new to him, we must for the present
speak only of what is the ieast apt to run counter to his prejudices.
Measures not hostile to his supposed interests must first be at-

97

tempted. We should request our governments to direct the land
surveyors, when fixing the boundaries of the new townships
opened every year to colonization, to point out with precision in
their reports the regions unfit for agriculture, in order that they
may not be granted for that purpose.

Let us further urge that the wood-reserves thus created, as well
as the forest limits rented for the manufacture of timber, be pro-
tected against the systematic and complete devastation to which
they are subjected by too greedy limit owners, and against fire.
Forests can be protected against such devastation by adopting and
enforcing rules to prevent the useless destruction of voung trees
and the ill-timed felling of trees not full grown. As to protection
against fire, the most effectual would be to compel woodsmen to
free the land from boughs, chips, shavings, branches, and other
wastage, which tend greatly to increase the number of bush fires.
I know that this will be called impossible, especially by woodsmen,
but what woodsmen of other countries can do, is possible for ours.

As to replanting in places where the forest has been destroyed
blindly, it is still more difficult to interest the farmer in it than in
forest preservation and protection. His forestry education is yet
too superficial to make him apt to understand that it is not only a
benefit, but a necessity to replant in denuded regions. In vain we
mention the fact that there are foreign countries where, by the
complete clearing of mountain slopes, fearful periodical floods are
caused, which necessitate banking up the towns situated on the
rivers (like the Loire for instance) taking their rise on these slopes,
to prevent them from being overflowed. We may even ‘point out
the same occurrence in our own country, that the St. Lawrence is
now subject to much more severe floods than it was formerly, and
that we see to-day the town of Montreal protected by a dike, the
same as the towns of France; and that for us this is only the
beginning. But all this is insufficient to convince the farmer that
replanting is necessary.

Nevertheless replanting is necessary, but as the farmer objects
to planting trees, the shade of which we will not enjoy, there is
happily another way of restoring forests. Almost always in the
regions deprived of wood it is an easy matter to bring the land to
produce by itself a good growth of trees. It is what I would call
the natural restoration of forests, and to quote what I wrote on
this subject six years ago in my book, Zhe Canadian Forester s
Lllustrated Guide :

98

‘‘ Extensive districts, long cleared of their forest growth, fre-
‘‘quently cover themselves again with wood, if care is taken to aid
‘‘nature in her operations. Generally speaking, plains and damp
‘‘marshes, where a few wretched stunted trees show themselves
‘“here and there, are susceptible of this treatment. Drainage, by
‘‘means of deep open ditches, of sufficient frequency to admit of
‘the tree growing, if not of perfectly drying the land, is the only
‘‘thing necessary. The moment that this has been done a multi-
‘‘tude of little trees will spring up, which were only waiting for
‘this amelioration to show themselves, and the new growth is
‘“ usually so prolific and so rapid that we should be inclined to call
‘‘it spontaneous, did we not know how long seeds would lie dor-
‘‘mant in the ground, until all things necessary for their growth
‘‘were present. The same thing occurs on certain hill-sides,
‘‘ where, protection being afforded against the teeth and hoofs of
‘cattle, their hoary heads soon become crowned with a wreath of
“luxuriant verdure.’’

I must state that to-day this natural restoration is well under-
stood by our farmers, and I can prove it by an example. The
tourist who travels by the Inter-colonial Railway from Quebec
down to Rimouski, in the Province of Quebec, goes through a
region of one hundred and eighty miles, which forty years ago
was for the greatest part in forest. This forest has been felled,
burnt, and has made place for numerous settlements. But the land
forming the slope of the mountain range, at the bottom of which
runs the railroad, having been found unfit for cultivation, has been
left by itself to make a second growth of wood. The new trees
have been thinned, well taken care of, kept uninjured from the
teeth and feet of animals, and now, from Quebec to Rimouski,
you will see fine maple bushes grown on the land once wrongfully
deprived of its trees by the old settlers.

WHAT CAUSES THE CYCLONES.

Mrs. S. W. Dopps, M. D., St. Louis, Missouri.

It is well-known that large bodies of heated air sometimes cre-
ate atmospheric disturbances ; also, that heat expands air or gases,
and that in this rarified state they will rise, and give place to
other volumes of gaseous matter. ‘There are many familiar illus-

99

trations of this. Suppose the air in a room is much warmer than
that outside, and there is a long window with its top near the
ceiling, and its bottom near the floor. If we slip the sashes a lit-
tle both at top and bottom, and then hold a lighted candle near
the openings, we shall perceive that hot air rises and forces its way
out at the top; and the cold air from outside rushes in at the bot-
tom to take its place.

Now, if instead of a room, we have a vast area of country filled
with super-heated air, what will happen? ‘The hot air will rise as
before, passing into the upper strata of the atmosphere, and the
cooler air will rush rapidly in to take its place. This, indeed, is
just what happens in the torrid zone, both on sea and land ; and
also in some parts of the temperate zones, where there are immense
deserts, and in these countries tremendous tornadoes or cyclones
are common.

Near the equator nature has produced an abundant vegetation ;
there are great tropical plants and dense forests ; trees and shrubs
with their thick foliage, which intercept the sun’s rays and equal-
ize or dissipate the heat. There are also luxuriant grasses cover-
ing the surface of the earth, and keeping it relatively cool. But
suppose men strip the earth of this covering, cut down the trees,
or dig them up root and branch. Suppose they do this over an
area of thousands or hundreds of thousands of square miles—what
then? ‘The sun forthwith withers the tender grass, the fragile
undergrowth of shrubs, and the clinging vines. The once green
earth is laid bare, both on hillside and plain, and when the rains
come, the waters will pour down the hills and mountains in tor-
rents, and rush on to the rivers, and by those great arteries to the
sea. The gentle showers that came at frequent intervals are now
of rare occurrence, and the country suffers from long droughts.
Instead of light mists or showers, there are heavy, beating rain-
storms, and often great water-spouts ; these accompanied with
wind and carrying everything before them. Trees are torn up by
the roots, and immense rocks lifted from their foundations.

But the men, meanwhile, are still at work ; they continue to fell
the trees, until the very mountain sides are bare. The plains are
converted into vast prairie lands. The sun scorches these plains,
killing everything that has life. And by and by there are no more
rains ; the immense bodies of heated air are of such magnitude,
covering such vast areas of country, that a reduction of tempera-
ture necessary to condense the moisture and cause rain-falls, can-

100

not be produced ; the right conditions are no longer present. In
other words, the once fertile land has been converted into a desert.

This is what has actually come to pass in certain countries. A
popular writer of our own times has shown conclusively that many
—if not most of the great deserts in the world—have been made
by man, and in the way already stated. This writer shows that
the work is still going on, and that unless we can stop it, vast
saharas or barren wastes will take the place of the once fertile
fields. He thinks, too, that our so-called great American desert
was produced in this way, and that there are forces now at work,
which, if unchecked, will convert large pane of our country
into desert tracts.

Take the State of Ohio for illustration. Thirty or forty years
ago it had a magnificent timber land, beautiful forests, even in the
more thickly inhabited portions. Some of these forests, it is true,
had been cleared away to make room for farms; but there was
still plenty of timber left, to say nothing of the orchards, orna-
mental trees and other shrubbery about the dwellings. Great
changes have taken place in Ohio; her beautiful forests are nearly
all gone, at least in the middle and southern portions of the State.
Instead of thick groves here and there, the little fringes of timber
are so thin and vapory, that they are as nothing, comparatively
speaking. As one passes through on the railway, even these
meagre strips of timber recede farther and farther from sight, and
we realize the fact that the once beautifully wooded State of Ohio
has been, in a great measure, transformed into one vast prairie.

What is true of Ohio, is to a large extent, true of many of the
other States. The forests have been cut off too closely, and the
climate of the whole country has been changed. The April show-
ers are now the exception, and either beating rain-storms or long-
continued droughts are the rule. And when the down-pour comes
in the spring time, there are neither trees nor undergrowth to ab-
sorb the water, it rolls down’ the bare hill-sides and slopes into the
rivers, and great damage to fields and farm lands, towns and cities,
must necessarily follow, from extensive inundations.

Have we no connection here between cause and effect? The
reasoning, it seems to me, is plain, and the sooner we make a note
of the facts in the case the better it will be for us and for those that
must follow after us. Unless some preventive measures are taken,
the storms will continue and increase in severity. The great bod-
ies of heated air that arise from the surface of twenty different

IOI

States, are disturbing the electric and other conditions of the atmos-
phere, and essentially changing our climate. Even the states that
are not yet so closely stripped of their timber suffer more or less
from the general conditions. The snows of winter are becoming
practically things of the past, and the genial showers are few and
far between. The scorching droughts are prevalent, and the short-
ness or failure of crops is in proportion.

I used to wonder what made the great prairies in Illinois and
Iowa. It never occurred to me that a former race of people had
probably done for these States just what we are doing to-day in
Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, Kentucky, the Caroli-
nas, and many other States. And as I listened to the birds in my
childhood, I little thought thattin a few decades the birds and for-
est trees would alike disappear, while swarms of insects (which
the birds would have eaten) almost take possession of our land,
eating up the crops. Have we not ourselves to blame? We have,
to a great extent, stripped the country of its trees, and without
trees we shall find few birds, while the insects will be left, and if
these pests are plentiful the crops will be destroyed. Ohio, once a
fine fruit country, can scarcely produce apples, the curculio takes
them, and also the plums. Even the small fruits are cut off by
the frequent droughts. The same is true of many other states.

Four years ago I was on the Pacific coast. The destruction of
timber is going on there. The hills around the beautiful lake Ta-
hoe being already nearly bare. This, indeed, isa burning shame !
In all that country the pines are fast disappearing. The lumber-
men are shipping them to distant points, and the green hills will
soon be almost as destitute of tree-life as the plains of Colorado.
The birds are going with the rest ; in fact, every loafer or boy that
can carry a gun is after them. There will most assuredly bea
sequel to all this; even now, in that distant coast country, so
noted for its fine climate, the storms are finding their way. Why
not? Like causes must produce like effects.

What, then, is the remedy? Shall we wait to find it till the
storms become hurricanes, and the high winds tornadoes, each as
frequent as in the torrid zones? We hear a good deal about irri-
gation. Given water, it is said, and the desert can be made to
bloom. Very true; but we had better have kept the water when
we had it and with it the trees, the foliage, the birds, the crops.
Whether we can bring them back is a serious question. We may
find it a long way to travel back to the right road, but we might,

102

at least, search it out. The trouble, I fear, is that we are not look-
ing for it. But the time is near at hand when we shall be forced
to seek it; to do what England has done; Germany, France, and
other European countries. We must replace our trees, enough of
them to modify our climate to a certain extent. If we once begin
we may save a great part of this country from becoming, sooner
or later, hopelessly barren, and mitigate the fearful and destructive
storms, which are already a terror to the people ; but we must be-
gin in time.

THE PRESERVATION OF SMALL FORESTS.

Dr. N. H. EGLESTON, OF THE U. S. ForEStTRY DIVISION,
WASHINGTON, D. C.

The greatest obstacle in the way of securing efficient action for
the preservation of the public timber lands arises from the lack of
personal interest in the work. The public forests are spread over
a wide territory ; their character and condition are only partially
known to the mass of those living near them, while the bulk of
the people, resident at a great distance, know hardly anything
about them and feel little interest in them. ‘They do not see what
benefit their preservation will be, or what loss, if any, they are
likely to suffer from their destruction.

In the case of private forests there is, of course, no lack of per-
sonal interest. But the difficulty here is that the interest is so
limited in duration that there is no adequate motive for proper
forest management, while the limited extent of individual hold-
ings usually prevents any such continuity of woodlands as will
secure the best forest results. Our system of land tenure and
the habits of the people are such that any parcel of land may pass
into the possession of a new owner at any time. The prospect of
pecuniary gain or saving, however temporary, is enough usually
to occasion the transfer of land from one to another, and most land-
owners in this country hold their lands in the consciousness of
such uncertain and limited tenure. Ofcourse the motive for plant-
ing or properly caring for woodland is correspondingly weak.
Then also the length of time requisite to bring trees to their

es

103

maturity discourages effort or outlay in planting or managing for-
ests. What advantage can a man, with his limited and uncertain
tenure of life, hope to gain from planting forest trees or cultivating
most effectively his partly grown woodland, when a century or
two is needed to bring his trees to their harvest time? He stands
dismayed before the slow-rounding cycles of the oak or the pine.
With a system of entails it would be different, for one would feel
that though his own life might soon come to an end, his efforts
and expenditure on his estate would not be wasted, but would
accrue to the benefit of his children and children’s children.

What our country needs, therefore, for the most successful deal-
ing with forests, is a personality whose life is as lasting as that of
the trees themselves. The Nation is such a personality, and
hence the Nation or State can care for the forests in the best man-
ner and use them to the greatest advantage and with the highest
profit in all respects, as is seen by the forest management of Euro-
pean countries. The same is true of counties, towns, parishes and
precincts, as well as private corporations. They can properly un-
dertake any enterprise, no matter how much time it may require
for its accomplishment. To such an unlimited life, to grow a
forest, even of sequoias, is no more than fogan ordinary person to
grow a crop of corn.

Why may we not avail ourselves of this larger, longer life for
the establishment of forests, if not on as large a scale as we would
like, yet so as to secure very desirable advantages? Why may
we not have something like the communal forests so frequent in
Europe? While encouraging every farmer and land-owner to pre-
serve a due portion of his existing woodland and to plant shelter-
belts at least, why may not our counties and towns as such estab-
lish and maintain forests? In many of our counties and in many
of our towns there are tracts of land, sometimes of large extent,
often comparatively small, but many in number, which are unfit
for ordinary cultivation, because they are stony, or swampy and
not easily drained, or lie on steep hillsides. As they are now,
they do not yield more than enough to pay the taxes assessed
upon them. But while thus unprofitable in their present condi-
tion they could all be profitably used for the growth of forests.
There is no land where trees will not grow, and there is no crop
’ which can be grown so cheaply as a forest. Why should not the
county or town utilize such tracts, by taking them out of their
present unprofitable condition and devoting them to a remunerative

104

forest growth? Such tracts would often be given to’ the town or
the county : in any case they could be bought at a very low price.
Where there are several small patches of woodland, or lands partly
wooded, but separated from one another, there would be a marked
advantage over the existing condition of things. These small
patches, if wooded at all, are of value now only for their small
yield of fuel and inferior timber. If they were in the possession of
the county or town they could be combined, the necessary con-
necting land also being taken, so as to form such a continuous
stretch of woodland as to possess more or less of the qualities of a
forest, exerting climatic and other influences. Such an extent of
woodland would also warrant better management and be more
productive than smaller parcels. From time to time also the town
or county could extend this forest area by gift or by purchase, as
the private person adds to his land, and as is done, in the case of
their larger forests, by the European States.

Another advantage gained by the town or county forest system
would be their protection of such forests from fire and other injury
as no strictly private forest or forests belonging to the general
government would be; for the whole community would have an
interest in watching them as their own property, and if fire should
by any chance break out, every one would be prompt to help in
extinguishing it.

Such forests could be cared for and maintained at a minimum
of expense and a maximum of profit. ‘This would be as the result
of the general law, that a large business is more economically
managed than a small one. The proprietor in this case, the town
or county, or trustees or other corporate person, would always be
able to command the requisite labor at the proper time. The work
would be done under no such stress for immediate results as often
urges the private land-owner ; therefore the work would be done
the more cheaply. If an existing woodland or several tracts were
thus taken in hand, the clearing of the rubbish and necessary
thinning could often be secured with little or no outlay of money.

There can be little doubt that a fair rate of interest on such an
investment as this could be secured. Examples of the manage-
ment of such limited and local forests abroad indicate this very
plainly. The forest owned by the city of Zurich, Switzerland,
consists of about 2,500 acres, lying on both sides of a stream in a
rather narrow valley between high hills, and is nearly five miles
in length. It is about an hour’s ride from the city. It has long

———————— ————

105

been managed as a source of revenue with satisfactory results.
Last year the net profit was more than $10.00 per acre. But other
considerations besides the mere pecuniary advantage would be
taken into account by town or county proprietors. The sanitary
influence of such forest reserves would deserve regard. ‘Their
influence upon adjacent agricultural lands would also properly be
taken into account, and their general climatic effect whenever they
were of considerable extent.

Such forests would also incidentally become valuable as experi-
ment stations, where many kinds of trees would be tested on what-
ever varieties of soil and exposure the grounds might furnish, and
thus every landholder around might learn much as to what trees it
would be most desirable for him to plant on his own premises.

A nursery would also naturally bea part of the equipment of such
a forest, for the purpose of rearing trees to fill the places of those
cut from time to time. And this might easily be made a source of
revenue, by the sale of young trees to the land-owners of the town
or adjacent region.

Finally, such a forest might have a value over and above any
of a pecuniary kind, by being made a place of pleasant resort for
the whole community, a place of special meetings on various occa-
sions and of healthful recreation at any time. Thus the people
would cultivate their forest, and it in turn would cultivate them,
developing in them a taste for natural objects, opening their eyes
to new beauties and new sources of delight, binding them together
in society, and endearing to them their dwelling place more and
more with the passing years.

TREE CULTURE AND EXPERIMENTS WITH SOUTH-
ERN TREES IN THE FAR NORTH OF QUEBEC.

AuGusTE Dupuis, LES AULNAIES, QUE.

Convinced by what I heard at the meeting of this Association at
Montreal, in 1882, that it was the duty of every owner of wood-
lands to follow the rational suggestions for their management there
made, I laid the matter before the L’Islet County Horticultural
Society, which decided that the best means to ascertain how the

106

farmers generally managed their woodlands, was to offer prizes to
those who had preserved their woodlands best, or who had the
largest area in good timber of new or second growth formed by
natural seeding and properly thinned.

Prizes were offered by the Society and private members, and
judges named to examine the woodlands of several competitors.
The first prize was for sixty-two acres of sugar maple trees, all large
enough to be tapped for sugar, all second growth, which had been
repeatedly thinned. ‘The first thinning was of no value; the sec-
ond, third, and fourth thinnings were valuable as firewood and
paid for the work. ‘The original growth had been cut down entirely
except a few maples left on some stony hills, which served to reseed
the land, some of which had been plowed thirty-five years before
the visit of the judges.

Three other prizes were given for maple groves of fifty, fifteen,
and three and a half acres respectively, similarly managed. It
was ascertained that many farmers were following this mode of re-
wooding their lands, but the majority neglected the seedlings,
which, being too thick, made sickly, slender trees of no value.
The prizes attracted the farmers’ attention to the subject, and the
following years a good many acres were thinned in the fall. I
myself thinned thirteen acres in two years, and the trees left have
since made an enormous growth.

I have here plants and branches of trees hitherto unknown in
the eastern part of the Province of Quebec, grown from seeds pro-
cured in the fall of 1884. I made this experiment without ex-
pecting any profit therefrom, but only to ascertain the degree of
hardiness of each.

In 1887 at the Provincial Exhibition at Quebec, I had fifty-two
distinct varieties of trees (seedlings) of the above plantation, for
which a diploma was awarded.

Most of the seedlings had grown well and I expected to declare
hardy, trees that had hitherto been considered tender in my dis-
trict and to the south-west. But I was disappointed, the third
and fourth year, to find that several kinds throve and resisted the
winter when they grew below the snow level, but the new growth
over the snow was entirely frozen in some and partially in others.
I will name some of the trees, and you may see by each tree and
branch on this table the damage caused by frost. The trees were
planted in exposed situations and without protection.

Ailanthus. Not hardy, freezes from the root.
Ash leaved Maple. Very hardy.

107 }

Birch, Cut-leaved European. As hardy as the American. This
very ornamental trees thrives splendidly and is reproduced
easily from cuttings.

Butternut. This beautiful tree is hardy and seems to grow as
quickly here as in Massachusetts.

Black Walnut. It has not proved hardy on my sandy soil. The
seedlings were destroyed by the freezing of the roots. Ice
had formed over the plantation three inches thick and thawed
only in spring. The plants had nOt a fair trial.

Catalpa. Not hardy here. I lost the trees after the third year.

Chestnut. Doing well and is very ornamental.

Common Locust (P. Acacia). ‘This tree, on sandy dry soil, seems
hardy, its growth being slow, but at the Manor des Aulnaies,
trees twenty years old, which annually bore an abundance of
fragrant flowers, were all winter-killed in 1887.

Golden Willow. ‘This tree grows rapidly for ten or twenty years,
and though looking healthy is suddenly winter-killed. This
is what happened to many large trees last winter.

Honey Locust. Not hardy. I lost trees (winter-killed) that
seemed well protected by a belt of balsams.

Kentucky Coffee. ‘Trees seemed hardy until the third year, but
part of each year’s growth has annnally frozen since.

Kilmarnock and New American Willows. Wardy, doing well.

Linden, European. Wardy like the native, the leaves are smaller.

Elm, European. No improvement on the native. Hardy.

Elm, Cork-barked. Did not thrive on my dry soil.

Maple, Silver-leaved. Wardy rapid grower. Since two years an
insect has attacked the leaves, spoiling the appearance of the
tree.

Maple, Red Colchicum. ‘This rare and beautiful Japanese variety
is not hardy: all the growth above the snow level freezes.
Maple, Sugar. ‘This native variety transplants with so little suc-
cess, that I was induced to sow seeds in 1882. I am convinced
that a nicer and healthier maple grove can be established by
sowing than by transplantation of trees from the forest. These
maples, planted in 1882, are now from fifteen to sixteen feet

high,

Norway Spruce. I was very unsuccessful with a plantation of two
hundred and fifty Norway spruce planted in autumn, 1886.

Magnolia Soulangeana. ‘The seedlings were from St. Catharines,
Ont., and were all winter-killed first year.

108

Horse Chestnut. ‘This tree was considered very hardy. We see
trees seventy-five to eighty years old at S. Jean Port Joli, but

last winter many trees fifteen to twenty years old, imported .

from Rochester, died. Trees from seed of the old trees at S.
Jean are very hardy and vigorous.

Oak, White. Very scarce in the forests of this section. The young
plants I raised grow very slowly. Several of them trans-
planted amongst other trees thrive much better.

Oak, Burr, Black, Swamp, Red, Pin, Laurel, Spanish, and Turkey.
The branches are from acorns sown in 1884. They have not
made much growth since. The soil is not rich, and I do not
think it advisable, for the trial of trees to ascertain their hardi-
ness, to enrich the soil too much, which might force a late
autumn growth not ripe enough to endure the winter. I see
no great advantage in introducing these oaks, as many of them
suffered by frost.

Tulip tree. ‘Three years trial is probably not sufficient to pronounce
it hardy East of Quebec. Still, I have great hopes in the suc-
cess of my small plantation, as only the terminal buds were

bitten by frost.

SHADE AND ORNAMENTAL TREES FOR CITIES.

GEORGE MOoorE, MONTREAL.

The importance of judicious tree planting to the beauty and
health of cities needs no argument, and I may therefore proceed to
notice, briefly, a few details.

First.—The varieties of trees most suitable for street planting,
are the elm, (U/mus Americana), and the thaple (Acer plata-
noides or Norway maple). ‘Their stately, but compact habit of
erowth, their wealth of luxuriant foliage, their non-liability,
generally speaking, to the ravages of insects, and their freedom
from danger caused by the extremes of temperature, are qualities
which render them the trees fav excellence for our purpose. A
mixture of both species in the same avenue is not advisable, be-
cause uniformity of growth should be aimed at; hence it would
be better to plant elms in the main thoroughfares, and maples in
the shorter, or narrower ones. Also for the sake of the uniformity
so desirable, the planting of trees in the public streets should be

109

undertaken by the municipal authorities, for, if left to the indi-
vidual property holders, the result will be unsatisfactory, because
one would perhaps plant a willow, and another an ash, or a pop-
lar; and at unequal distances. In this city, for example, this state
of things is much to be deplored. If the Grande Allée could be
made of the same width from the Parliament House to the Gov-
ernor’s residence, and planted with elms at equal distances, say
sixty feet apart, of the proper quality, what a magnificent drive
it would become a few generations hence !

The quality of the young trees to be planted claims our particu-
lar attention. These should be nursery-grown seedlings, properly
prepared by frequent transplanting and pruning to adapt them to
the purpose. It may be objected that nursery-grown trees cannot
be obtained, but were they used in preference to those from
the forest, the demand would create the supply, and enterprising
nt&serymen would raise them in large quantities.

In a recent article in the Ouebec Journal of Agriculture, our
Vice-President, Mr. Joly, advises every land-owner to establish a
small nursery on his own account in which to raise and cultivate
seedlings of such shade and ornamental trees as he might require
for his own use. When we consider that every estate is so much
improved by good trees, and the advantages of rapid and symmetrical
growth which such trees possess over those taken from the forest,
we-must hail with interest the valuable suggestion.

Great mistakes are made by corporate bodies or their em-
ployees, entrusted with public money for the purpose of tree
planting, by trying to do the work as cheaply as possible. Econ-
omy does not consist in the purchase of unsuitable articles, nor
in the employment of inefficient workmen. It is remarkable that
these very persons are most particular as to material and execu-
tion of all other public works, but when it comes to the delicate
and intricate operation of tree planting, in which mistakes are
fatal to success, they think it so simple a matter that any tyro can
perform it, and therefore set one to work to grub trees out of the
forest and plant them without regard to the proper method ; the
inevitable result being failure, loss of money, and what is almost
more serious,.loss of time.

Trees dug from the forest must have their large roots severed
for the purpose of removal, and are therefore very liable to fail
under the ordeal, besides which they are one-sided and ill-shaped
from having grown in too close proximity to other trees. They are
therefore a long time, supposing they survive, in becoming

IIO

ornamental ; being, if small, like whip-stocks, or, if large, having
been stripped of their branches to bring them into shape, like
miniature telegraph poles, and surely our cities are already suffi-
ciently disfigured with these. On the other hand, properly culti-

vated trees are well furnished with fibrous roots, which render their ~

successful transplanting by skilful hands almost a certainty ; and
their branches are so arranged by judicious pruning as to make
them beautiful objects as soon as they begin to develop their foli-
age, the very first season. ‘The first cost of such trees is consider-
able in proportion to the others, as the nurseryman must be paid
for the necessary labor, knowledge, and time to produce them, but
eventually the outlay will not be greater, and even a saving may be
effected, for it is more than probable that the forest trees will have
to be replaced several times before any will succeed.

Cheap labor in this respect is usually the dearest. Properly
qualified and careful men alone should be employed, and those
under the superintendence of a competent and responsible foreman,
who will see that the holes are dug with a due regard to the spread-
ing of the roots, and of a sufficient size and depth ; which in street
tree planting should be larger than under ordinary circumstances ;
not less than four feet square and three feet deep. The gravel, or
poor soil of which streets are generally composed, having been
removed, the hole should be filled with partially decayed sods and
a little well-rotted manure to give the plant a good start and
insure vigorous and rapid growth.

A writer in the Montreal Witness lately suggested that gratings
should be placed round trees in cities, so as not to impede the side-
walk ; to admit air and water to the roots, and which could occa-
sionally be removed and the earth loosened ; this is unquestionably
a good suggestion, for as the writer remarks, concrete and paving
stones prevent the roots from being duly aerated and moistened ;
processes necessary to the rapid and healthy growth of a tree.
There has been much controversy as to the proper season of plant-
ing, but practical arboriculturists are now pretty well agreed that
spring is the best, especially in this northern climate.

Though trees of moderate size are transplanted with the great-
est safety, the necessities of the case demand that those for street
planting should be larger than for ordinary purposes, being more
exposed to danger of injury from various causes. ‘They should
be at least one inch and a half in diameter of the stem, which
should be not less than eight feet high up to the first branches.
They must be stout and stocky, which they will be if they have

a

Aha Ge

received careful attention, and been twice or thrice transplanted
before leaving the nursery.

The distance at which trees are planted from each other must be
regulated by circumstances. Elms in broad avenues should not
be less than sixty feet apart, but maples may be a little closer.
The shade should not be too dense, and a free circulation of air
should be allowed around each tree when grown. ‘Then-each will
be a specimen of symmetry and beauty in itself, and form a more
elegant component part of the whole avenue.

It is most important that pruning should be done annually for
the first few years at least, if the tree is to assume the desired per-
fection of shape, or become what the English call a “‘ pictorial
tree.’’ This should be done by competent persons only,
whose practical knowledge and judgment will guide them as to
which branches to remove, and which to retain, to accomplish the
end in view. If trees are allowed to go for years unattended to as
to pruning, they can never be made so handsome, and are besides
very much injured by the cutting away of too large branches.

Science points to the fact that when the sap is in the best condi-
tion to effect the healing of the wound quickly, is the proper time
to prune, and this is in the early summer as soon as the young
leaves expand.

Boxes, to protect from injury, and to keep them in their places,
should be put around every tree , these should be of a plain, but
artistic design, and painted dark brown, as best assimilating with
the color of the trunk, and harmonizing with that of the foliage.

In every city, by-laws should be enacted for the care and pro-
tection of their shade trees, and no vandal should be allowed to
cut and hack them in the manner too frequently done. A prop-
erly qualified and duly appointed officer, with full authority to ar-
rest depredators, should have all the shade and ornamental trees
under his charge, and if absolute necessity arises for the cutting
away of any roots or branches, he should be duly notified, and the
trees should be touched only under his direction and supervision.

In view of the sanitary advantage to the dwellers in cities, and
especially to the working classes, to say nothing of the improved
appearance of a place by the formation of parks, and the planting
of lines of trees in the leading thoroughfares, it is an urgent neces-
sity that steps be taken to foster and encourage the planting and
after-care of trees everywhere, and to impart to the public as much
of the .knowledge necessary to success as will make the practice
popular and conducive to their comfort in so many respects.

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SD American Forestry Concress
118 Proceedings

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