692 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



organizations, which in the past failed entirely in this 

 effort. 



The forester in the United States has proven himself a 

 public servant of the highest order and value. 



A forester's life is one of the finest that any enterpris- 

 ing, hardy man can desire ; work and hardships niinglf; 

 with leisure and freedom, and to this is added variety in 

 work and variety in place, the out-of-doors and a clean 

 and beautiful environment. His work is not of the petty 

 three-cent clerk character; he deals with large things, 

 thousands of acres, millions of timber. The salary of the 

 forester is good in the Old World and is good here. In 

 the United States service it has been rather low, consid- 

 ering the high cost of living and special expenses, and it 

 is to be hoped that Congress will see the necessity of sub- 

 stantial advances. But even here the forester has fared 

 just as well and even better than the teacher, the doctor, 

 lawyer, etc. Considering the length of time, the lack of 

 experience, etc., the forester in the United States has fared 

 well. When young men of just fair capacity and only 

 four to eight years' experience draw $2,000 and as high 

 as $4,000 per year, while good teachers of 20 years' ex- 

 perience work for $2,000, there should he little com- 

 plaint. 



This statement would be incomplete without a word 

 on the course of study which the forester pursues ar 

 school. The course in forestry normally takes up — in 

 sciences — mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology and 

 mineralogy, botany and zoology ; then also surveying, in- 

 cluding map making, besides the usual courses in forestry 

 proper which take up about 40 per cent of the time. This 

 program is so well planned, has been fully tried for years, 

 has proven useful in so many cases for work in other 

 lines besides forestry, that it is not at all boastful to sa" 

 that a student who takes a forestry course is far more 

 certain of a useful, well-balanced science course than is 

 the student who trusts his own immature judgment and 

 the enthusiastic pleadings of the various specialist 

 teachers. 



To sum up : The field is immense in its extent, interest- 

 ing and enjoyable in character and appreciative in its 

 pay. The United States has the forests and lands — the 

 people, the industries. W'c need the foresters and we 

 shall have the foresters. The forester even now is 

 making himself felt the length and breadth of the land, 

 and in this hour of war he is proving a fit rival of his col- 

 leagues abroad. 



BAD FOREST FIRE SEASON 



'X'ilE total number of fires extinguished by private, 

 -■- state and Forest Service employes during the past 

 season in the Pacific Northwest was 7,688, of which 938 

 were classed as bad fires. All interests for forest protec- 

 tion combined employed 2,579 regular patrolmen outside 

 of about 12,000 extra fire fighters, the total expenditure 

 for fire protection by all concerned being $1,825,000 

 Since the extremely disastrous fires of 1910 aroused pub- 

 lic sentiment against fires, a closer co-operation be- 

 tween private, state and national agencies has done much 

 to reduce the number of fires that start in dry times 

 and still more to prevent the fires that do occur from de- 

 stroying large areas of valuable timber. 



Especially energetic measures were undertaken during 

 the past season by some of the state authorities. In Au- 

 gust the Governor of Oregon placed detachments of 

 troops throughout the state where trouble prevailed and 

 incendiary fires stopped at once. The Governor also 



closed the hunting season after it had been open for a 

 week. In the State of Washington the forest fire w^ar- 

 dens controlled bad fires at the expense of those responsi- 

 ble for their origin and this provision of the Washington 

 law has been commended by authorities in other states. 



During the past season 650 forest patrolmen, together 

 with the necessary extra help, extinguished 2,388 fires on 

 the holdings of the members of the Western Forestry and 

 Conservation Association. The season was one of the 

 dryest on record and most favorable for the origin and 

 spread of destructive fires. Yet the actual loss of timber 

 this last year was very much less than in previous bad 

 years due to the increasing effectiveness of fire-preven- 

 tion measures carried out by the timberland owners, 

 whose patrolmen kept watch over an area totaling 21,- 

 326,000 acres. The timber landowners of this territory 

 spent $290,000 for fire prevention work. 



IVTOTIFICATION has been given by the United States 

 Shipping Board that Southern pine manufacturers 

 will be called on by the government to furnish during, 

 the next 12 months timbers for t'aa CDastruction of! 

 100 more wooden ships, in addition to the 141 schedules 

 which had already been placed with mills. This means 

 approximately half a billion feet of timbers will have 

 to be produced for the government in the Southern pine 

 territory within a year. Four hundred million feet will 

 go into ships, and one hundred million faet will be. 

 needed for ways, docks, props, houses and other us33 at 

 shipbuilding sites. 



T)IRDS and Food Conservation are the subject of a war 

 ^-' bulletin issued by the Conservation Department of 

 the General Federation of Women's Clubs, of which Mrs. 

 John Dickinson Sherman, of Chicago, is chairman. This 

 leaflet urges the protection of birds because of their value 

 as destroyers of insects. Startling figures are cited, show- 

 ing that in Massachusetts alone the authorities estimate 

 one day's work by the birds to be the destruction of 

 21,000 bushels of insects, while in Nebraska it is esti- 

 mated that the destruction amounts to 170 car loads a 

 day. In the leaflet club women are urged to do their 

 share in protecting the birds, by seeing that the laws are 

 enforced. 



