STATE NEWS 



New Hampshire 



Speaking of the development of the forest 

 policy of New Hampshire, Governor Robert 

 P. Bass, of that State, in an article in the 

 Christian Science Monitor says : 



"There is developing throughout New 

 Hampshire an appreciation and practical 

 understanding of the importance of forestry. 

 It has been estimated by experts of the 

 United States forest service that about 60 

 per cent, of the land surface in the State 

 is better suited to the growing of forests 

 than farm crops. A great deal of this land, 

 though too rocky or steep for farming, has 

 good soil and produces rapid tree growth. 

 These natural forest soils being near the 

 large markets will enable the owners more 

 and more to sell all the products of the forest 

 at a profit. 



"The forest policy of the State is develop- 

 ing along three lines — the protection from 

 fire of timber now standing and the young 

 growth coming on ; the reforestation of 

 waste or unproductive land, and the acqui- 

 sition of forest land by the State and the 

 United States. 



"The system of fire protection is based on 

 cooperation between the State and the 

 towns. A warden is appointed in each town 

 to have charge of fire fighting, the State 

 and towns sharing equally in the expense. 

 The State directs the work of the wardens 

 and operates 15 mountain lookout stations 

 for the discovery of incipient fires. 



"A notable feature of the fire protection 

 work is the organization of the timberland 

 owners of northern New Hampshire, who 

 have formed a cooperative association repre- 

 senting an ownership of over 1,000,000 acres, 

 on which they assess themselves one cent per 

 acre per year, and use the fund for patrol 

 in times of drought, for additional lookouts 

 and for the establishment of caches of fire- 

 fighting tools in convenient places. 



"New Hampshire was the first State to ben- 

 efit by the Weeks act. During the summer 

 of 1911 a cooperative agreement was entered 

 into with the Secretary of Agriculture by 

 which the State received the services of 24 

 federal patrolmen. 



"The reforesting of cut-over land and 

 waste land has enlisted the interest of small 

 owners for a number of years and is increas- 

 ing rapidly. Within the past two years sev- 

 eral large owners have begun reforesting 

 operations on an extensive scale. The State 

 operates a forest nursery for the distribution 

 of young trees, and two commercial nurseries 

 are successfully growing forest tree seed- 

 lings on a large scale. 



"The public ownership of forests has been 

 strongly urged by New Hampshire for the 



past decade. This is especially important 

 with high mountain forests, where the 

 growth is so slow that private capital can- 

 not handle them as conservatively as they 

 should be handled to protect the forest cover 

 for the scenic effect and the regulation of 

 stream flow. It is to be hoped that under 

 the Weeks act the United States will soon 

 acquire a large amount of the White moun- 

 tains as a national forest. 



"The sentiment in favor of State owner- 

 ship has increased to such an extent that the 

 last Legislature passed an act for the pur- 

 chase of the Crawford notch as a State 

 forest. Three small tracts have been re- 

 ceived by the State as gifts. Such tracts 

 should be used as forest experiment stations 

 to stimulate an interest in private forestry. 

 In this connection it is noteworthy that a 

 number of towns own small tracts of wood- 

 land which could be made quite profitable." 



Maine 



Forest Commissioner Mace, of Maine, says 

 that lightning was responsible for the ma- 

 jority of forest fires in Maine last summer. 



"The majority of these fires," said the 

 Commissioner, "were traced back to the start- 

 ing point. They always buck the wind. 



"The big Frenchtown, Lobster Mountain, 

 fire was started by lightning striking a green 

 hemlock. We found the hemlock which it 

 hit. The fire on Enchanted Mountain, which 

 burned over 8,000 acres was started by light- 

 ning, as was the Pine btream and Deer Pond 

 fires." 



Mr. Mace says the result of the year's work 

 has demonstrated the value of the fire patrol 

 and lookout service. In consequence of this 

 branch of the State's work many millions of 

 dollars' worth of lumber has been saved. He 

 points out that Maine has between 9,000,000 

 and 10,000,000 acres of timber land worth 

 $45,000,000 and with all the great fires which 

 raged in the State during the summer the 

 total loss will not much exceed $200,000. 

 This, he saj'S, could only have resulted from 

 the efficiency of the service. 



Massachusetts 



The fire lookouts stationed by the forestry 

 department in varoius sections of Western 

 Massachusetts during the past few weeks 

 have been relieved for the winter, but their 

 service has covered a sufficient period to 

 make the success of the plan very apparent. 

 The fall has not been as dry as those of the 

 past few years, and the danger from forest 

 fires has been correspondingly decreased, but 

 several cases have been reported where the 

 lookouts have discovered fires soon after they 



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