NEW FEDERAL GAME PRESERVE 



717 



about Eagle Creek bridge, on the Columbia Highway. 

 This particular section, by reason of its great scenic beauty 

 and natural advantages as a camp site, and in response to 

 public demand, was mapped and a tract comprising 13,873 

 acres was set aside for recreational purposes. Ten thou- 

 sand dollars is being spent on trail work and a veritable 

 wonderland is soon to be opened. 



In every forest visited the development of transporta- 

 tion facilities for the use of the public was going on as 

 rapidly as the funds permitted. With the awakening of 



NEW FEDERAL GAME PRESERVE 



PRESIDENT WILSON has issued a proclamation 

 by which the Pisgah National Forest, in western 

 North Carolina, is made a Federal game preserve. 

 This is the first Federal game preserve of its kind to be 

 created east of the Mississippi River. The Pisgah National 

 Forest consists largely of the George W. Vanderbilt 

 estate, part of which has been purchased by the Govern- 

 ment. The land is located near Asheville and Biltmore, 

 North Carolina. Owing to the protection against hunting 

 which has been afforded the tract for a number of years, 

 the game has not been killed out, as is the case in most 

 places in the southern mountains. Deer, wild turkey, and 

 pheasants r.re said to be plentiful. 



After it was known that the tract would be acquired 

 by the Government, many of the local citizens urged that 

 the protection to the game should be continued. The 

 North Carolina Legislature passed an act whereby the 

 State consented to the enactment by Congress of laws for 

 the protection of game, birds and fish on any lands pur- 

 chased by the Government under the Weeks Law in the 

 western part of the State. 



As a game preserve, no hunting will be allowed on the 

 Forest and as the deer and other game increase on the 

 area, it is expected that the overflow will drift out of the 

 Forest and gradually restock adjacent lands. A move- 

 ment is now on foot to place a herd of elk and one of 

 buffalo in the preserve this winter. 



Regulations governing the camping and fishing privi- 

 leges have been drawn up in cooperation with local citi- 

 zens and sporting clubs, and will be issued by the Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture. It is understood that regulated fishing 

 will be allowed, but the number of permits issued the first 

 season will be purely experimental, since the capacity of 

 the streams is not known. 



ON HIS CHOSEN SITE 

 Building the summer home in the Sierra National Forest on land plotted and 

 leased for home sites bv the Service. Our National woodlands, under generous 

 Federal policy are growing in popularity each year as summer retreats for 

 thousands of families. 



the West to the individual ownership its citizens have 

 in the forests, with the increase in the number of per- 

 manent summer dwellings and with the growing popu- 

 larity of the forest as the best health resort and play- 

 ground in the world, may be confidently antici- 

 pated a more liberal policy of appropriation and a larger 

 grant of power to the bureau which has so eminently 

 proven its fitness for the task of administering this 

 magnificent estate. 



The economic value of the National Forests hereto- 

 fore has been measured in dollars and cents. It seems 

 not improbable that their value as playgrounds in the 

 not distant future may be regarded even more highly. 



RESOLUTIONS asking more liberal support for the 

 Texas State Forestry Department at the hands of 

 the next Legislature were adopted at a recent 

 meeting of the Texas Forestry Association. Speak- 

 ers estimated that $20,000 is the minimum on which the 

 efficiency of the department can be maintained. 



CALIFORNIA'S PROBLEMS 



THE twenty-eight million acres of forest in California 

 bristles with problems for investigation, and the 

 University of California has now completed the 

 organization of a new department of forestry in order to 

 try to help solve them. Nobody knows yet how fast 

 California trees grow. The division of forestry wants to 

 find out, so that the state, counties, towns and railroad, 

 lumber and water and power companies can devise wise 

 policies for growing permanent crops of timber on the 

 vast acreage unsuited for other purposes. 



The university also wants to train specialists in tropical 

 forestry to solve the problems of the vast forests of Cen- 

 tral and South America and the orient storehouses of 

 untouched wealth. 



A STRIP of almost solid forest, approximately fifty- 

 five miles long and from two to eight miles wide, 

 has been covered by topographers of the Pennsyl- 

 vania Forest Service in the most accurate survey of 

 Permsylvania's forests ever made. The purpose of the 

 surveys is to secure data on which to base plans for the 

 future development of the State Forests. 



