WITH MEMBERS AND 

 CORRESPONDENTS 



Southern The followng letter re- 



Ii!^^!fr ceived from H. C. Put- 



Almost Gone , t^ ^, . -.^.r- 



nam, of Eau Claire, Wis- 

 consin, gives some facts concerning 

 the forest situation in the Southern 

 States that are worthy of the most 

 serious consideration : 



"On my return from Florida I 

 . found your recent favor, and at once 

 wrote my friend, Hon. J. J. Jenkins, 

 a mighty strong letter on the subject 

 of the forestry bills — not only the Ap- 

 palachian-White Mountain bill, but 

 that other very important one, the 

 timber census bill. 



"Of course, I know the House is 

 crowded with bills, many of them 

 'dinkey' ones to us who are interested 

 in the forestry and water supply meas- 

 ures. I know the Appalachian coun- 

 try well. Am an old civil engineer, 

 and was eight years in the mountains 

 of the Carolinas and Georgia. It is 

 appalling to think of that country be- 

 ing in the condition of the lower Poto- 

 mac River, and it will be worse if the 

 waters all run off at once as they do 

 from the head of the Potomac, because 

 the soils are poorer, and, the sources 

 being higher, the streams are more 

 rapid. I was also an engineer on the 

 Mount Washington road in the early 

 '50s, and remember well the timber 

 we worked in. I was there again in 

 [894, and saw what had been done, and 

 how the waste of soil, etc., was going 

 on. 



"Forester Pinchot says 'the timber 

 will all be used up within twenty 

 years.' I have been in the timber, 

 south, all winter, and he is right. 

 Three-fourths of all the timber in the 

 south has been turpentined already. 

 That means dead, and must be cut. 

 I saw many small mills cutting and 

 selling lumber — the best the.y could 

 get — for $10 per thousand feet, mill 

 run, and only sawing the best. The 

 best in 1906. sold for $20, mill run — 

 now it is $10. We have 240,000 acres 



in LaFayette County, Florida, that we 

 are trying to save from the ax and the 

 turpentine still. 



"Sincerely vours, 



"H. C. Putnam.^' 



Is Much Mr. E. E. Kill, Master of 



Appreciated Science, Department of 

 the Collegiate Institute 

 at Guelph, Ontario, writes, "Forestry 

 AND Irrigation is much appreciated." 



Prevention A correspondent, writing 

 Fires "^* from Capron, West Vir- 



ginia, thinks the Govern- 

 ment does not take a sufficiently active 

 part in the prevention of forest fires, 

 and speaks of the annual burning off 

 of forests to improve pastures. The 

 Government can not well take control 

 in such matters where the forests are 

 privately owned and the prevention 

 of forest fires, as our correspondent 

 should know, forms a large part of 

 the rangers' work, during the summer 

 and autumn months, on National for- 

 est areas. The letter follows : 



"If the Government is really in earn- 

 est about forest preservation, then let 

 it get after the fire bug, not in the na- 

 tional reserves alone, but in every 

 state in the Union. The National 

 Government has no power? Well, 

 then, if they cannot make any laws 

 that will give them the power the for- 

 ests are irretrievably lost, for the states 

 will not enforce the laws. Our moun- 

 tains are burned off every year. The 

 people burn them to improve the cattle 

 and sheep range. Of course it kills 

 the timber, but then the timber does 

 not belong to them. There is a man 

 here who has the woods fired so the 

 huckleberry will not be shaded and 

 consequently bear better, which means 

 more feed for his hogs. There are the 

 Deople who keep the woods fired regu- 

 larly. The hog people are worse than 

 all the rest put together. If we had 

 laws by which hogs would not be 

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