NEWS AND NOTES 



129 



However pitiful the remnant of this once 

 noble forest is, the law is a glimmer of reac- 

 tion against chronic American carelessness 

 and waste, and its enforcement for the sake 

 of a national playground that it is still not 

 too late to save. — Neivark (N. J.) Nezvs. 



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The Use of Peat in Alaska 



The high price of coal and other fuels in 

 Alaska, due to the fact that they have to be 

 taken from a distance to the more remote 

 regions away from water transportation 

 routes, makes it advisable to consider the 

 possibility of utilizing peat, great areas of 

 which are common in the territory. More 

 than 10,000 tons of this fuel are prepared and 

 used annually in the countries of northern 

 Europe, while in the United States and 

 Alaska not 1,000 tons were used in 1908. 



Peat is partly decomposed vegetable mat- 

 ter that is intermediate in character and fuel 

 value between wood and coal. When prop- 

 erly prepared and air dried, it burns freely 

 and gives ofif more heat than the best wood, 

 but not so much as bituminous coal of good 

 quality. The chief difficulty in using it for 

 fuel is that it is always saturated with water 

 as it is found in the beds, and has to be dried 

 before it can be burned. The drying canbe 

 done most cheaply by exposure to the wind 

 and sun. Machines for drying and shaping 

 it into bricks are in common use in Europe, 

 and peat thus prepared makes a more desir- 

 able fuel than cut peat, though it is some- 

 what more expensive. 



In the expectation that the great stores of 

 fuel in the peat beds of Alaska may be used 

 to some extent, C. A. Davis, of the United 

 States Geological Survey, has written a paper 

 describing the dififerent processes of prepar- 

 ing peat for fuel (so far as they are applica- 

 ble to the conditions existing in Alaska) and 

 stating the cost of these processes. 



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 Reforesting Burned'-over Areas 



An investigation as to the practicability 

 of reforesting the great areas of forest lands 

 which have been devastated by fire and which 

 are now lying barren and unproductive, is 

 now being carried on by the United States 

 Forest Service in the Olympic National For- 

 est in Washington. The area selected for 

 the experiments comprises several thousand 

 acres on the Soleduck River, and was at 

 one time covered with a magnificent forest 

 of Douglas fir. It was first burned over in 

 1890 and again in 1895. A third fire over 

 almost the same area occurred in 1906, de- 

 stroying the last remnant of the original for- 

 est, leaving the entire area treeless. 



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Big Timber Operation on Bad River Indian 

 Reservation 



With brush-burning just completed on the 

 Bad River Indian Reservation in Wisconsin 

 under the supervision of the United States 

 6 



Forest Service, the largest timber operation 

 in that part of the Lake States for a great 

 many years is brought to a close. Following 

 the disastrous fires throughout the north 

 woods during the summer of 1908, it was 

 evident that logging operations must be 

 extended over the Bad River Reservation 

 on an enormous scale to save the timber 

 which was fatally burned by these fires. 

 Accordingly, the J. S. Stearns Lumber Com- 

 pany contracted to log all of the burned 

 timber of the reservation. 



Twenty-six logging camps were established 

 on the reservation, and the average number 

 of men employed was about 3,000. Thirty- 

 one scalers were required to do the scaling, 

 and they were constantlv check-scaled by 

 three inspectors directed by the Forest Serv- 

 ice. The greater part of the logs were 

 hauled to Bad River, which became jammed 

 with logs for about forty miles. To manu- 

 facture this immense cut of small logs, the 

 J. S. Stearns Lumber Company found it 

 necessary to purchase two sawmills in addi- 

 tion to their own, and to contract with three 

 other sawmills situated on Lake Superior in 

 the vicinity of Ashland. 



By the method of brush-burning employed 

 it will be practically impossible for fires to 

 spread so extensively as in the past. By a 

 contemplated cooperation with the J. S. 

 Stearns Lumber Company, it is planned to 

 hold a sufficient force available to combat 

 any fire which may start on the reservation 

 during the summer season, and with the as- 

 sistance of the fire lines made by burning 

 a wide strip adjoining green timber, it is 

 probable that loss from fire on the reserva- 

 tion will be reduced to a minimum. 



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Forestry and Unemployment 



In a recent address Rider Haggard, the 

 author, stated that he believes afforestation 

 will do away with a vast amount of unem- 

 ployment. It had become apparent in the 

 minds of the English people that something 

 should be done to repair the wastage of 

 their woods. The royal commission has 

 found that afforestation was both practicable 

 and desirable, and that it ought to be profit- 

 able to the state. If the full scheme sug- 

 gested by the commission — that 9,000,000 

 acres should be afforested for eighty years — 

 at the end of that time the state should have 

 a property worth over $2,500,000,000, that 

 amount being nearly $500,000,000 in excess 

 of the cost incurred in creating it, allowing 

 three per cent compound interest upon the 

 cost. At the end of that period the state 

 should have an income of $85,000,000 or $90,- 

 000,000 a year clear profit, * * * and event- 

 ually give employment to at least 90,000 men. 

 —American Cultivator, Boston, Mass. 



