230 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



dollars provided for in the new forest law just passed. There is a plain duty 

 before the state of New Hampshire. This duty is to save the Crawford 

 Notch to be the permaneut possession of the people of the state and thereafter 

 to secure such other of its mountain forest tracts as would not naturally be 

 included in the national holdings and are especially indicated as the property 

 of the state. In this way only can the full value of the new national forest 

 law be secured. It is not contemplated by any one that all the lands that 

 must be public forest reservations should be owned by the national govern- 

 ment. It is proposed that the national government should hold the great 

 interstate watersheds of navigable rivers and that this should be a nucleus 

 for state and private holdings which may be under the same or similar forest 

 administration and protection. The friends of New Hampshire who have 

 worked early and late for many years past to secure through the nation the pro- 

 tection that was desired, look to the state to prove by its own actions that it 

 deserves the interest that has been lavishly given to it. 



CURRENT LITERATURE 



REVIEWS 



The Mississippi River and its Wonderful 

 Valley. By Julius Chambers, Fellow of 

 the Royal Geographic Society, Member 

 of the National Geographic Society. 

 With 80 illustrations and maps. pp. 

 xvi, 308. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New 

 York and London, 1910. 

 Mr. Chambers has made in this volume 

 on the "Father of Waters" an interesting 

 addition to the handsome Putnam series 

 on American waterways. The human and 

 historic sides of the great river's life 

 interest the author especially, and there 

 is slight discussion of physical conditions, 

 or engineering, waterpower, and trans- 

 portation problems. Reviewing briefly the 

 the early conjectural period of Mississippi 

 River discovery, the work of De Soto, and 

 the much more extensive and fruitful 

 French explorations, thn author comes 

 down to the days of the English and Amer- 

 icans, the Louisiana purchase, and the 

 early explorations to discover the some- 

 what elusive source of the river. The 

 most interesting part of the volume is the 

 chapters given to an account of the au- 

 thor's own explorations, undertaken in 1872, 

 to complete the reconnaissance carried on by 

 Schoolcraft in 1832, and Nicollet in 1836. 

 resulting in the discovery of Elk Lake. 

 After this exploration the author went 

 by canoe to Saint Louis, and then by steam- 

 boat to New Orleans. There is a chapter 

 on the delta and a brief one on "The Age 

 of Water," after which the author turns 

 to the modern history of the river. Were 

 any criticism to be made of this enter- 

 taining volume it would be that there is 

 a lack of continuity in the narrative, and 

 too frequent Interjection of irrelevant 

 matters. 



The Cost of Growing Timber. By R. 8. 

 Kellogg, Secretary Northern Hemlock 

 and Hardwood Manufacturers' Associa- 

 tion, and E. A. Ziegler, Director Penn- 

 sylvania State Forest Academy. Ameri- 

 can Lumberman, Chicago, 1911. 

 This interesting and practical pamphlet 

 is a development of a paper prepared by 

 the authors and presented at the seventh 

 annual meeting of the National Lumber 

 Manufacturers' Association, in Seattle In 

 July of 1909. The discussion occasioned 

 by the paper and subsequent study of the 

 subject led them to revise the original 

 manuscript, and publish it in its preeent 

 form In the belief that its principles are 

 sound and will help toward a clearer con- 

 ception of the conditions which must be 

 established in the United States if forest 

 conservation is to be a reality. The key 

 to the discussion may be found in a sen- 

 tence in the introduction: "The permanent 

 timber supply will not be maintained by 

 private effort at less than the cost of pro- 

 duction." The object of the pamphlet is 

 to present a method of analysis of the ele- 

 ments of cost of growing timber. These, 

 the authors say, are five; (1) the value 

 of the land; (2) the stocking of It with 

 young trees; (3) the administration of the 

 operation, and the protection of the grow- 

 ing timber; (4) the taxes; (5) the rate 

 of interest. These elements are then dis- 

 cussed in general, following which de- 

 tailed studies are made of the yield of cer- 

 tain trees. The trees chosen are the white 

 pine, the loblolly pine, the long-leaf pine, 

 red oak, and Douglas fir. The authors 

 then draw certain general conclusions as to 

 the profitableness of the production of the 

 species examined. An appendix contains 

 some cost tables which will be serviceable 

 in m.aking computations. 



