722 



CONSERVATION 



letin 334, "The Burning of Coal without 

 Smoke in Boiler Plants," by Mr. Randall, 

 the edition of which is now exhausted. The 

 report just published consists of i86 pages 

 and forty illustrations. 



The conclusions reached may be sum- 

 marized as follows: 



Smoke prevention is possible. 



Any one kind of apparatus is effective only 

 if so set under boilers that the principles of 

 combustion are respected. 



Stokers or furnaces must be set so that 

 combustion will be complete before the gases 

 strike the heating surface of the boiler. 



No one type of stoker is equally valuable 

 for burning all kinds of coal. 



Although hand-fired furnaces can be op- 

 erated without objectionable smoke, the fire- 

 man is so variable a factor that the ultimate 

 solution of the nroblem depends on the me- 

 chanical stoker — in other words, the personal 

 element must be eliminated. 



The small plant is no longer dependent on 

 hand-fired furnaces. 



In short, smoke prevention is both possible 

 and economical. 



>^ ^ 5^' 



Soil Fertility the Foundation of Progress 



Agriculture is being given more promi- 

 nence among the educators of our Nation 

 than ever before. There are now fifteen 

 state agricultural high schools, and forty 

 others which receive state aid. Two hundred 

 and fifty high schools and academies are 

 giving instruction in agriculture and there 

 are also sixteen co. leges privately endowed 

 with funds to carry on this same farm train- 

 ing. One hundred and fifteen state and 

 county normal schools are teaching our 

 teachers to teach these principles. The peo- 

 ple have seen a great light. It is a most 

 hopeful sign of a hopeful Nation that we are 

 placing our trust in the soil as the founda- 

 tion of our material prosperity. Our food 

 comes from the soil. When a man is rea- 

 sonably assured of his daily bread, he may 

 begin to cast about him for other means of 

 betterment, but the bread must be provided 

 first. As with one man, so with a nation. 

 While we firmly establish our agricultural 

 greatness, we shall have no fear but that our 

 other grovvfth and prosperity and general 

 progress will follow right along. In all 

 this we shall never forget that it is the soil 

 fertility of America that most directly fur- 

 thers her might. — The Wisconsin Farmer. 



^ i^ an 



Maine's Timber Loss 



According to Fred A. Gilbert, of the Great 

 Northern Paper Company, of Bangor, Me., 

 the annual loss to the state of Maine through 

 failure to utilize its wealth of timber is over 

 $10,000,000 on five of the most common kinds 

 of lumber — spruce, pine, fir, hemlock, and 

 cedar. Besides this loss, the state is also 



slowly losing its principal asset — the stand- 

 ing growth of the timber itself. This latter 

 loss, in the opinion of Mr. Gilbert, is not due 

 to the annual cutting and marketing, but to 

 the waste and decay and losses by fire and 

 wind. 



"Given the needed railroad facilities into 

 this now inaccessible wealth of timber," says 

 Mr. Gilbert, '"a proper care in cutting, and 

 an efficient fire patrol, and the state is ca- 

 pable of producing 1,400,000,000 feet of 

 spruce, pine, cedar, hemlock, and fir annually, 

 or 650,000,000 feet (less unavoidable fire 

 and wind losses) more than it is now mar- 

 keting, to say nothing of hardwoods, and 

 yet gain in the quantity of timber standing." 

 —The Paper Mill. 



^ iii ^ 

 Reforestation in Ontario 



The Ontario Department of Agriculture 

 has published a Report on the Reforestation 

 of Waste Lands in Southern Ontario. It 

 states : 



"In spite of the assertions of so-called 

 practical men that nature will look after 

 the replacing of the forest, the following is 

 certain, that on large areas where no seed 

 trees of commercial species exist, it will be 

 impossible to obtain satisfactory new growth 

 within a reasonable time." 



It estimates that southern Ontario could 

 eventually have over 10,000,000 acres of pri- 

 vate woodlands, and maintains that "it is 

 very important that the private landowner 

 be urged and educated to feel the necessity 

 of protecting existing woodlands, and re- 

 planting waste areas. This branch of work 

 can be greatly assisted by demonstrating 

 forestry methods on these larger areas. * * * 



"Government forest nurseries * * * will 

 be able to supply planting material to owners 

 anxious to replant waste land. 



"In addition to their value as object-les- 

 sons in forestry methods, these areas should 

 be preserved for the people of Ontario as 

 recreation grounds for all time to come. * * * 



"The policy of putting these lands under 

 forest management has many -arguments in 

 its favor. It will pay as a financial invest- 

 ment; assist in insuring a wood supply; pro- 

 tect the headwaters of streams; provide 

 breeding ground for wild game; provide 

 object-lessons in forestry, and prevent citi- 

 zens from developing under conditions which 

 can end only in failure." 



U? 5^ «« 



Forestry In California 



The California State Board of Forestry 

 issues a small, four-page folder, the moral 

 of which is, "Do your best to prevent for- 

 est fires." From it we clip the following 

 items : 



"Would you set fire to any man's house? 



"If you saw his house burning, would you 

 pass by without doing anything.^ 



