USES OF NATURAL AREAS 



17 



and poaching, with the land and streams 

 patrolled by guards and wardens, it 

 stands to reason that the preservation 

 of fish and game can best be accom- 

 plished on a broad scale under state or 

 national departments, with settled 

 policies and greater power for law 

 enforcement. 



To what extent game protection shall 

 be connected with forestry is an unset- 

 tled question. Foresters may object 

 because where forests, fish and game 

 are combined into a large department 

 they feel that forestry is very likely to 

 receive secondary consideration. In 

 some of the states and Canadian prov- 

 inces, however, forestry and game 

 interests are associated under one de- 

 partment, either merged into a large 

 Department of Conservation, a Depart- 

 ment of Lands and Mines, or a Forest, 

 Fish and Game Commission as it was 

 for a long time in the state of New York, 

 this, however, having been superseded 

 by a Conservation Commission. In 

 the province of New Brunswick, for 

 example, all registered guides under the 

 Department of Lands and Mines are 

 sworn in as deputy fire wardens while 

 foresters and scalers also report viola- 

 tions of the game laws of the province. 

 New Brunswick has set aside about 

 600 square miles of territory on the 

 Nepisiguit River not only to serve as an 

 experimental area where the effects of 

 different methods of cutting may be 

 studied but also to serve as an immense 

 game refuge. Game preserves have 

 also been established by the state of 

 Pennsylvania and it has already been 

 demonstrated that these tracts serve 

 as breeding grounds whence game 

 flows over into contiguous areas. The 

 linking up of the state game preserves 

 with state forests is of great impor- 

 tance to lovers of wild life since the 

 protection of such tracts from fire under 

 the state forest fire laws will protect 

 not only animals and birds but fish 

 since it has been shown that fish have 

 been killed in large numbers by ashes 

 washed into streams by heavy rains. 



2. THE PRESERVATION OF NATU- 

 RAL CONDITIONS IN THE 

 NATIONAL FORESTS 



By C. F. Koustian 



No fact in connection with the devel- 

 opment of our country is more evident 

 than the tremendous change which has 

 taken place in the original vegetation. 

 Many areas once covered with virgin 

 forests are now either productive farm 

 lands or are waste and desolate as the 

 result of lumbering and fire. We still 

 have left vestiges of the original growth; 

 but even these are threatened. 



It is a trait of mankind to preserve 

 antiquities. Museums for their safe- 

 keeping and display are liberally main- 

 tained. Universities and scientific 

 schools of today must have them for 

 research in important fields. It is 

 just as true of our original forest con- 

 ditions, including all their biological 

 implications, as of any other of the 

 relics of the past, that science as well 

 as human interest demands the pres- 

 ervation of these samples. They can- 

 not be brought to the museum; they 

 must be their own living museums. 

 They are as necessar}'^ for the sound and 

 progressive development of the biolog- 

 ical sciences as they are for the art 

 and science of forestry. The education 

 of future generations demands them. 



The forester will soon deal almost 

 wholly with cutover timberlands, j'et 

 — as has been clearly pointed out by 

 Ashe' and Pearson^' — if the highest 

 ideals of silviculture are to be attained 

 the forester must not be deprived of 

 the basic facts which Nature records 

 in the virgin forest. The practicing 

 forester, in the interest of the highest 

 use to the public through increased 

 production of the most valuable species, 

 often profoundly changes the natural 

 conditions and, as has been stated else- 

 where in this volume, these conditions 

 may also be readily modified by graz- 



'Ashe, W. W. "The value to silviculture of 

 reserved areas of natural forest types." This vol- 

 ume, pp. 10. 



2 Pearson, G. A. "Preservation of natural areas 

 in the National Forests." Ecolojy, 3: 2S4-287. 

 1922. 



