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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of woodland for the practical field work 

 of the students, and several other own- 

 ers have expressed their desire to devote 

 their wood-lots to this purpose. 



Such schools as the Yale Forest 

 School and the thoroughly equipped 

 school at Cornell under Professor Fer- 

 now's direction meet a definite, practi- 

 cal need, for it is an undeniable fact 

 that the supply of lumber is being di- 

 minished beyond safety. Twenty million 

 dollars' worth of native lumber is used 

 annually in the manufacture of wood- 

 pulp alone. Nearly half of the original 

 resources of Washington Territory, the 

 home of supposedly inexhaustible for- 

 ests, have been used. Indiana once pos- 

 sessed 28,000 square miles covered with 

 valuable timber. It sent timber to the 

 East in large quantities, but now must 

 import 82 per cent, of the lumber it uses. 

 Lumbermen from the Lake States are 

 now taking up timber land on the Pa- 

 cific coast. Experts agree that if things 

 had been left to take their natural 

 course, a timber famine would have been 

 the probable fate of the next generation 

 or two. The Government with its for- 

 est preserves and the awakened land- 

 owner with economical methods of tim- 

 ber-cutting will delay and probably 

 avert such a catastrophe, but a future 

 scarcity in lumber is by no means the 

 only bad result of a laissez faire policy 

 regarding forests. The forests are the 

 guardians of the water supply; useful 

 water power, regular irrigation and the 

 absence of dangerous freshets are all de- 

 pendent on the proper condition of the 

 vegetation of watersheds. It is supposed 

 that the freshet which caused the Johns- 

 town flood of May, 1889, was due in part 

 to the denudation of the Mill Creek wa- 

 tershed, and at the request of the Johns- 

 town Water Company this region has 

 been examined by experts from the Di- 

 vision of Forestry of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, who have 

 recommended that where the land has 

 not been covered by a second growth, it 

 be planted and that careful protection 

 against fire be given to the whole dis- 



trict. When one considers that similar 

 measures, if taken a generation ago, 

 might have prevented the loss of $10,- 

 000,000 worth of property, to say noth- 

 ing of the tremendous loss of life at the 

 Johnstown disaster, one realizes the im- 

 portance of forest preservation as a 

 prophylactic against floods. We should 

 teach even the children in the schools 

 Humboldt's warning, "In felling trees 

 growing on the sides and summits of 

 mountains, men under all climates pre- 

 pare for subsequent generations two ca- 

 lamities at once — a lack of firewood and 

 a lack of water." 



These national forest reservations 

 are located in the western third of the 

 country, and agitation is now in prog- 

 ress for similar reservations in Minne- 

 sota at the head-waters of the Mis- 

 sissippi and in the Southern Appala- 

 chians in the western part of North 

 Carolina. The proposed Minnesota 

 Park would include over 200,000 

 acres of water surface and over 

 600,000 acres of land. It would serve 

 as a game preserve, as well as a 

 profitable forest and an assurance to an 

 important water supply. The only ob- 

 jection seems to be on the ground of the 

 expense of purchase of Indian rights, 

 which General Andrews, Chief Forest 

 Warden of the State, estimates as not 

 over $75,000 per year. $2,250,000 has 

 this year been devoted for deepening 

 and improving the Mississippi River. 

 Yet this is dependent on the proper 

 treatment of the very region in question. 

 The passage of the bill was apparently 

 favored by all those competent to judge 

 of the case. It was postponed and will 

 probably be again considered in Decem- 

 ber. Concerning the proposed Southern 

 Appalachian reservation Prof. J. A. 

 Holmes said at the New York meeting 

 of the American Forestry Association: 

 "Such a reserve, if judiciously managed, 

 will pay a good interest on the invest- 

 ment, besides proving of inestimable 

 value to the people of this country as a 

 public resort for health and pleasure, 

 as a lesson in practical forestry, and as 



