Fire in an Arkansas Forest 



numerable tales of hard-fought battles 

 with the flames ; battles fought against 

 apparently overwhelming odds and in 

 the face of difficulties that would make 

 the members of a metropolitan fire de- 

 partment quail. In these titanic strug- 

 gles many a life has been sacrificed, 

 and not a few of the Government's 

 field workers have at last retired from 

 fights of this kind, maimed, scarred, 

 and crippled for life. 



A few months ago a well-known 

 writer — Mr. Emerson Hough — in 

 Everybody's Magazine, told the story 

 of the work of the Forest Service in 

 the field. His story opened with the 

 words, "My friend, last night some- 

 body burned your house !'" The words 

 were startling, but they were absolutely 

 true. Last month somebody burned 

 your house, reader ; somebody burned 

 your neighbor's house ; somebody 

 burned, during July and August, 

 enough houses to make a good-sized 

 city. Five million dollars' worth of 

 standing timber means a vast amount 

 of sawed lumber ; it means lumber 

 enough for several thousand houses. 

 That many homes burned when the 

 flames ravaged the Canadian forests in 

 the Northwest. Flames, at the time of 

 this writing, were raging in the pine 

 and spruce forests of Washington and 

 500 



Oregon ; they were threatening the de- 

 struction of the redwood forests of the 

 Yosemite, in California ; and from a 

 dozen other points came the story of 

 raging fires and doomed forests. The 

 houses that have been burned, in this 

 wholesale destruction of timber dur- 

 ing the past two months, would make a 

 city of 50,000 inhabitants. But still 

 there are those who say "There are 

 plenty of forests : there can never be a 

 timber famine in America ; there is no 

 need for even the National . Forests we 

 already have." And they oppose the 

 .Appalachian Forest plan : they oppose 

 the White Mountain National Forest : 

 they continue, in the West, their oppo- 

 sion to the whole forest program of the 

 Government. When will their eyes be 

 opened ? 



1^ «r' «< 



The Next Annual Meeting 



PLANS are now forming for the 

 next annual meeting of The 

 American Forestry Association, the 

 date of which has been fixed by the Ex- 

 ecutive Committee. The meeting will 

 be held in Washington on January 13, 

 14, and 15, 1909, and members of the 

 association are urged to begin now 

 their preparations to be present and to 



