3o8 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



their cost, as well as other data of value to 

 the growers of timber and to the sellers and 

 buyers of lumber. 



In making up the figures, lumber tised as 

 bridge timbers, house frames, farm fences, 

 trestles, boardwalks, walls, and similar 

 classes of structures, with only such cutting 

 and fitting as is given it by carpenters, was 

 classed as rough lumber; that made into 

 flooring, finish, siding, sash, doors, frames, 

 panels, stairs, boats, vehicles, boxes, baskets, 

 turnery, wooden-ware, cooperage, musical in- 

 struments, farm implements, furniture, 

 spools, handles, and like forms, was placed in 

 the class of finished lumber. 



The present aggregate population of the 

 four states is estimated by their respective 

 state officials to be 9,165,975; the populatio'i 

 of the United States in round figures is 

 90,000.000, according to recent estimates. The 

 average lumber cut in the four states for 

 1907 and 1908 — the one an active, the other 

 a dull year — was 3.753,293,000 feet, and for 

 the United States it was 36,740,261,000. Cal- 

 culated on this basis, the per capita use of 

 sawn lumber in the four states was 410 feet 

 and in the United States 408 feet. The per 

 capita use in the four states of lumber fur- 

 ther manufactured was 263 feet. These fig- 

 ures indicate a lavish use of lumber in the 

 United States, for our per capita consump- 

 tion is from three to ten times that of the 

 leading nations of Europe. 



The Forest Service In Nebraska 



Referring to recent heavy fire damage in 

 the national forest near Dunning, Nebr., on 

 the Loup and Dismal rivers, the Lincoln State 

 Journal quotes D. C. Deaver, a Nebraskan, 

 as saying: 



"Fire can never destroy the good work done 

 by the Forest Service along the Dismal and 

 Loup rivers in Nebraska. The fact that pine 

 trees can be grown in the sand hills of 

 northwestern Nebraska is so firmly planted 

 in the minds of the farmers of that section 

 of the state that even though every tree on 

 the forest reserve should be destroyed by 

 fire, the farmers will go on planting trees 

 from year to year until that part of the 

 state will look like a wooded country. In 

 the early days of Nebraska, people were 

 just as skeptical about growing trees in cen- 

 tral and eastern Nebraska as they are now 

 in northwestern Nebraska, if not more so. 

 The growing of trees and the cultivation of 

 the soil changes the nature of the soil, caus- 

 ing it to retain more of the moisture that 

 falls and each ten-year period advances the 

 line of the movement of farmers westward. 



The time will come yet when the sons of 

 the men now settling in the west will go 

 back east to redeem the worn-out eastern 

 farms." 



»^ «? )^ 



Range Fires and the Texas Tick 



Contrary to a widespread belief, the United 

 States Department of Agriculture does not 

 consider the burning over of national forest 

 lands as an effective means of dealing with 

 the cattle tick and the dreaded fever which 

 it spreads. This is set forth by Secretary 

 Wilson in the following passages of a recent 

 letter to Representative Floyd, of the Third 

 Arkansas district : 



"I have just received a communication 

 from Dr. Cooper Curtice, veterinary inspector 

 of the Bureau of Animal Industry of this 

 department, setting forth certain opinions re- 

 specting the burning of forests and ranges to 

 destroy ticks which infest cattle and trans- 

 mit disease, in which the department fully 

 concurs. Doctor Curtice has had many years' 

 experience with the department, is one of 

 the original investigators of the fever tick, 

 and has probably had more experience in 

 this line of work than any other scientist. 

 He has recently made a tour through north- 

 ern Arkansas and investigated the conditions 

 which exist in that locality, and his ob- 

 servations are therefore quite pertinent to 

 the question of conflict in the policies of the 

 the Bureau of Animal Industry and the 

 Forest Service. The observations of Doctor 

 Curtice are, in effect, as follows : 



'■ Tt is true that at certain times of the 

 year burning the grass on an enclosed field 

 may remove the ticks wherever the fire 

 travels, but even then many places remain 

 unburned and the owner depends on the fire 

 for eradication and consequently fails. At 

 meetings of cattle men and others I have 

 been speaking against the practice of burn- 

 ing over the forest ground and have held 

 that no work would be saved in the process 

 of eradication because the cattle should nec- 

 essarily be treated according to some one 

 of the methods specified in Farmers' Bulletin 

 No. 378 (Methods of Exterminating the 

 Texas Fever Tick), in order to secure per- 

 fect results. It is necessary to remember in 

 this connection that there are many unburned 

 places, especially around the dwellings, barns 

 and other places where cattle lie. 



" 'Wherever the grass is repeatedly burned 

 the roots become eventually destroyed, the 

 sweeter grasses give way to the more re- 

 sistant and finally the latter perish. Not only 

 does fire destroy the scanty sod, but in 

 removing the leaves as a protective covering 

 the hot sun of summer is permitted to dry the 

 soil to a crust and continues the devastation. 

 The best grass I saw was in a place where 

 the young growth was at least three years 

 old. In so far as trek eradication is con- 



