542 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



mation, and organizes the work to be 

 subsequently carried on by the division 

 of administration. 



WORK OF THE BUREAU FOR THE 

 COMING YEAR 



Commencing with July, 1909, the 

 work of both divisions of the bureau 

 will be concentrated upon the organiza- 

 tion of systematic forest control for 

 areas in northern Negros Occidental 

 and in Bataan. General administrative 

 work will be attempted for the first 

 homesteads, for the three districts will 

 continue as before, but detailed forest 

 work will be attempted for the first 

 time on the two areas mentioned. The 

 plan is to take additional areas each 

 year for organization and subsequent 

 practice of detailed forest control and 

 management, until all public forest, 

 which should be retained as such, is 

 taken in hand. The work in Bataan 

 and Negros will form the commence- 

 ment of this work. Up to the present 

 the administrative work by the Bureau 

 of Forestry on public forest land has 

 been of a very general character, but 

 the bureau has been investigating and 

 locating areas for future intensive ad- 

 ministration — areas which the general 

 welfare of the Filipino race demands 

 should be permanently held in public 

 forests, managed in accordance with the 

 principles of forestry. During the lat- 

 ter half of the fiscal year the division 

 of investigation will resume the work 

 of mapping the different classes of land 

 and will probably complete the land 

 classification map for the Philippines. 



The limits of the Negros and Bataan 

 forests have been very roughly located ; 

 there are probably about 160,000 hec- 

 tares in the former, and 80,000 in the 

 latter. The Insular Lumber Company 

 is located in the Negros forest, and the 

 Cadwallader Lumber Company in the 

 Bataan forest, which are the two largest 

 companies in the islands, and an impor- 

 tant part of the work will be mill-scale 

 and volume work to check up the 

 amount of timber cut by these com- 

 panies. This will include, also, the col- 

 lection data as a basis for volume tables 



of standing trees, showing the amount 

 of lumber in standing trees of different 

 diameters and species ; and for tables 

 showing the amount and grades or 

 quality of lumber cut from logs and 

 trees of different sizes and species and 

 the per centage of waste due to rot, shake, 

 and careless sawing. This information 

 will be of value to all lumbermen in 

 the Philippines and to those intending 

 to go into the lumber business. The 

 bureau by this detailed mill study will 

 determine the most economic methods 

 of milling Philippine timbers and will 

 be able to make recommendations for 

 changes in present methods which will 

 mean a saving to the lumbermen. 



The chief forestry work on the Ne- 

 gros and Bataan forests will be in the 

 collection of data as a basis for a de- 

 tailed working plan or plan of man- 

 agement for the two forests, including 

 topographic and forest maps of the 

 same, with the probable limits of the 

 area which should be permanently held 

 in forest. This data will be gotten more 

 or less in connection with the work of 

 patrol and cutting of trails, which are 

 also important lines of work. For the 

 purposes of patrol, both of the forests 

 have been divided into three range dis- 

 tricts, with an educated Filipino ranger 

 in charge of each, and each of these 

 districts subdivided into a number of 

 patrol blocks with Filipino guards to 

 patrol them. Trails will be cut, where 

 there are none already, as boundaries 

 between ranger districts and patrol 

 blocks, and secondary trails made cut- 

 ting up each patrol block into a number 

 of sub-blocks. These trails will be used 

 for patrol and will be useful as fire 

 lines in case of fire. Topographic and 

 forest data will be collected for each 

 sub-block by surveying out all trails cut, 

 and taking careful topographic and 

 forest notes while running out these 

 trails. In the working plan each sub- 

 block will have a separate description, 

 including the character and condition of 

 the forest, an estimate of the timber, 

 and recommendations as to work to be 

 done — improvements, such as tree plant- 



