216 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



employed now than will suffice to do the lessening the efficiency of forestry work 



work. 



The worst feature of this proposed bill 

 is the situation which it creates with 

 regard to the division of appropriations 

 for the work of the commission. Even 



in the State. 



Have the citizens of Wisconsin any 

 complaint to urge against the present 

 form of State forestry commission, that 

 thev will stand bv and see it abolished? 



if these were made separately for the Minnesota is expending $75,000 annu- 



different classes of undertakings, they ally, in forest fire protection, under a 



mustberecommendedby a triple-headed similar board. Oregon recently aban- 



commission, whose individual interests doned the plan of combining forest fire 



lie along wholly separate lines. What protection with fish and game protection 



is given to forestry may be looked on as and created a separate forestry board 



taken from game and fish protection, similar in character to the one which 



and vice versa. 



Governor Whitman, of New York, 

 in his recent message, stated : "The work 

 of the divisions of forestry, and of fish 



Wisconsin legislators propose to do away 

 with. Oregon took this step to secure 

 efficiency. Which State is right? 

 One thing is certain. The present 



and game, must be kept entirely separate" form of separate, non-political control 



and in this State, so often quoted as a of forestry in Wisconsin has been dem- 



model in recommending the consolida- onstrated to be the best existing plan 



tion of forestry with fish and game, the to secure the desired progress in forestry, 



two classes of work maintain entirely and to this statement a dozen States bear 



distinct sets of wardens, overlapping in witness, namely, New Hampshire, Ver- 



the same territory. They have never mont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Penn- 



attempted to combine the field work of sylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, North 



fish and game wardens with that of a Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Minne- 



forest fire warden; and those who are sota and Oregon. The proposed con- 



familiar with conditions in our wooded 

 regions will readily understand the 

 necessity of keeping these two kinds of 

 State work entirely distinct in the minds 

 of the settlers and public. We believe 

 that the economy urged as a reason for 

 this consolidation cannot be demon- 

 strated. It may be that Wisconsin 

 does not need her present form of sepa- 

 rate conservation commission nor a 

 separate State Park Board. But to 

 make the consoHdation of these boards 

 a reason for combining forestry with 

 fish and game protection will result 



solidation is discredited and has failed 

 in the States of Oregon, Kentucky and 

 Alabama, and has given very unsat- 

 isfactory results in Michigan and 

 Louisiana. 



It is for the people of Wisconsin to 

 choose. They are at the parting of the 

 ways. So clearly is the issue presented 

 that the American Forestry Association 

 has incorporated in its platform a plank 

 calling for the maintenance of non- 

 political, departmentally independent 

 State forestrv boards as of the first 



inevitably, as it has elsewhere, in greatly importance in State forestry. 



WORDS OF WISDOM 



A 



LLENTOWN, one of the most 

 progressive of Pennsylvania 

 cities, is ignoring the most 

 important subject of the pres- 

 ervation and increase of the shade 

 trees on her streets. The Chronicle and 

 News of that city editorially sounds 

 the following warning : 



"Rather than encouraging by non- 

 action the demoHtion of the city's 



fine shade trees on some of the older 

 streets, Allentown should have from 

 fifty to one hundred thousand noble, 

 beautiful trees upon her streets and 

 open places, and she would have them 

 had we, in time, placed their planting, 

 trimming, care and maintenance under 

 public, expert control, as has been 

 done in the most progressive and 

 wideawake cities of the world. As it 



