602 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



nights. Such relief as the law provided 

 and voluntary aid could offer was gen- 

 erously given, yet much suffering, as 

 well as the suspension of their salaries, 

 has fallen to the lot of those who bore 

 the brunt of the fight. The members 

 of the Forest Service in Washington 

 subscribed nearly two hundred dollars 

 toward a relief fund, and immediately 

 thereafter the Red Cross placed one 

 thousand dollars to the credit of the 

 District Forester in Missoula for the 

 same purpose. No money was ever 

 more justly earned, but it should rather 

 have been paid by the Nation, in recog- 

 tion of the loyal service rendered. 



>^ &' &' 



A State Superintendent to His Teachers 



IN THE last biennial report of the 

 department of public instruction of 

 the state of Florida we find a brief 

 Arbor Day communication by the state 

 superintendent, W. M. Holloway, which 

 is a model in its terse, direct, and sim- 

 ple statement of the benefit and need of 

 tree planting and culture and its moral 

 value to the community. It points the 

 way for educational work through the 

 schools in behalf of the trees, a way 

 that should be followed by educators 

 throughout the country. 



We want the teachers in our schools 

 to understand, so that they can com- 

 municate the knowledge, what forestry 

 and arboriculture are and what their re- 

 lation is to the life of our people, es- 

 pecially to the coming generation, now 

 in our schools. To these school chil- 

 dren, when they reach manhood and 

 womanhood, the course of certain west- 

 ern statesmen, and of certain capitalists 

 whose motto is "after us the deluge," 

 will be anathema. The United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture has already 

 enlisted thousands of boys in its cam- 

 paign for a better agriculture. Austin 

 A. Burnham, general secretary of the 

 Business League of America, proposes 

 a banding of the boys of America, espe- 

 cially the farm boys, in an organization 

 to be known as The Tree Planters of 

 America, to promote the work of re- 

 forestation. We must enlist the great 

 body of the school children of America 



in the campaign for the perpetuation of 

 the forests and the protection of the 

 trees, so that this may continue to be a 

 good world for them to live in. 



Florida has great and rare natural 

 resources. It has* undertaken to re- 

 claim one of these, the vast area of 

 the Everglades. Its climate is an ex- 

 haustless mine. Its land and water 

 teem with rich gifts to men. Not least 

 in the category are its forests. Nine 

 million acres carry merchantable timber 

 to-day, and twelve million are estimated 

 to be restocking after having been cut 

 over. This comprises considerably over 

 half of the area of the state, and it is 

 probable that much of this land can 

 best be devoted permanently to forest 

 growth. 



Here, then, is one of the large items 

 in the state's welfare. Why should not 

 the children who are to make the Flor- 

 ida of the future understand its sig- 

 nificance? But Mr. Holloway's com- 

 munication to his teachers is of nation- 

 wide application, and we commend it to 

 the attention of state and local superin- 

 tendents everywhere. Here it is : 



To the Teachers of the Public Schools of 

 Florida: 



Tree planting by students in our educa- 

 tional institutions and by the pupils of the 

 public schools is fast becoming a national 

 custom. The kind of trees best adapted to 

 the soils and climatic conditions of Florida, 

 when to plant trees, where to plant them, how 

 to prepare the soil for them, and how to 

 care for them, are all matters of growing in- 

 terest to the children, trustees, teachers, and 

 citizens generally in every school district of 

 our state. 



The wholesale destruction of our great for- 

 ests during the past thirty years has brought 

 to the attention of the American people, more 

 emphatically than ever before, the facts that 

 the annual increase and growth of our forests 

 must always keep even pace with the demand 

 for lumber and fuel made upon them, other- 

 wise, the time will be short indeed when our 

 forest wealth will become, completely ex- 

 hausted. This is not a new question. Tree 

 planting in European countries has from time 

 immemorial been the custom of their people 

 whenever and wherever the condition has 

 forced itself upon them. Tree planting is 

 now an American custom, sanctioned by law 

 in nearly every state in the Union, and the 

 preservation of our forests from useless and 

 wanton waste will, we predict, be closely 

 guarded in the future. 



