STATE WORK 



Pennsylvania 



At the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania 

 State Foresters at Harrisburg on March 6 

 and 7, Pennsylvania, commended for the ad- 

 vanced position it has taken in conservation 

 and in forestry management with its 972,000 

 acres of preserves, was warned to take the 

 best protective measures possible against for- 

 est fires by Prof. Filibert Roth, of the Uni- 

 versity of Michigan, and F. A. Gaylord, of 

 the New York Conservation Commission. 

 Prof. Roth declared that stumps were monu- 

 ments of ignorance and asserted that they 

 could be made to yield handsome returns if 

 properly handled. 



Prof. Gaylord urged that the foresters be 

 put to work to erect telephone lines, which, 

 he said, had been done in his State at a cost 

 of from $7 to $9 a mile, and which had 

 proved of great value in calling men to aid 

 in fighting fires. 



William F. Dague, of Clearfield, talked on 

 the protection afforded by taking out stumps 

 and waste and the income produced there- 

 from; T. Roy Morton, Petersburg, on more 

 rapid growth; Prof. E. A. Zeigler, Mont 

 Alto, on early returns, and Harold E. Bry- 

 ner. New Germantown, on clearing methods. 

 In the afternoon the papers were by for- 

 esters, including John A. Bastian, Loyalsock ; 

 James E. McNeal, George H. Wirt, Lewis 

 E. Staley, Harry A. Thompson and Forrest 

 H. Dutlinger, who declared roads and mar- 

 kets should be studied, as the two went hand 

 in hand, and who predicted that, with better 

 roads, the State's income from forests would 

 increase. 



Much time was devoted to the business 

 side of fore,«;t management in the papers of 

 Foresters John W. Seltzer, Coburn; John L. 

 Strobeck, Crosco ; Homer S. Metzo^er, Logan- 

 town ; Walter D. Ludwig, Boalsburg; John 

 R. Williams, Rector, and D. H. Warfield, 

 Milroy. 



Former Congressman N. W. Wheeler and 

 T. D. Collins, of Forest County, both of 

 them lumbermen, sr>oke of the financial ben- 

 efits, while former Mayor E. A. Weimer, of 

 Lebanon, and Forestry Commissioner S. B. 

 Elliott, recommended more planting and the 

 extension of precautionary methods to pre- 

 vent forest fires. Prof. I. T. Worthley and 

 Joseph Illick, of the Mount Alto Forestry 

 Academy, dealt with the question of manage- 

 ment in reference to getting the best out of 

 rangers. 



California 



There were 326 more forest fires in Cali- 

 fornia during 1911 than during 1910, and 426 

 more than in 1909, according to a report by 

 State Forester G. Morris Homans, in which 



282 



he gives the area burned over, cost of fight- 

 ing, etc. The total damage in 1911, how- 

 ever, was only a little more thaa one-fifth 

 as great as in 1910, but somewhat greater 

 than in 1909. 



During 1911 there were 1,064 forests fires, 

 against 738 in 1910 and 638 in 1909. The 

 total damage during 1911 was $128,451.50 

 against $628,989.20 in 1910, and $100,000 in 

 1909. 



The area burned over in 1911 was 55,182 

 acres of forest land and 227,102 open chapar- 

 ral land; in 1910, 216,069 acres of forest 

 lands and 303,394 acres of chaparral ; in 

 1909, 76,730 acres of forest land and 279,539 

 acres of chaparral. 



Wisconsin 



With the view of developing a plan for the 

 utilization of the millions of acres of cut- 

 over lands in Wisconsin, the United States 

 Government has decided to make extensive 

 experiments in forest on the Sparta military 

 reservation. The military reservation con- 

 tains 20,000 acres, a large part of which is 

 available for the experiments which are to 

 be under the immediate direction of W. B. 

 Piper, supervisor of the Marquette and Mich- 

 igan national forests, and are to start at 

 once. Pines from Northern Minnesota are 

 to be planted principally. 



The entire northern half of Wisconsin 

 was until comparatively recent years, occu- 

 pied by extensive pine forests, which have 

 almost all been cut, and while much of the 

 denuded land is valuable for agricultural pur- 

 poses, a large part of it can be best em- 

 ployed for the development of new forests 

 as soon as the method of handling and 

 growing them has been well worked out. 



Minnesota 



A meeting of the representatives of Cen- 

 tral and Northern Minnesota railroads was 

 held at Duluth recently with W. T. Cox, the 

 State forester, and other representatives of 

 the State and National Forestry Depart- 

 ments. The meeting was for the purpose 

 of discussing fire prevention and methods 

 for accomplishing the best results. W. H. 

 Gemmell, general manager of the Minnesota 

 and International road, was chairman of the 

 meeting. 



The railroad men say that they will make 

 it their business to give careful attention to 

 fire prevention which costs the roads not 

 only for property that may be destroyed and 

 judgments procured by settlers, but the loss 

 of vast sums in prospective freights by the 

 destruction of timber by fire. 



Michigan 

 That the Northern Forest Protective As- 

 sociation, organized in Marquette in the fall 



