354 



ARBORICULTURE 



twofold, its money value to the owners and 

 its economic value to the public and the 

 State. 



A house burned can be replaced in a few 

 months, but the cunning of a man cannot 

 replace the destroyed forest. The work of 

 forest restoration must be left to nature, 

 which takes years to bring a tree to matur- 

 ity. In many instances of tires it is impos- 

 sible to replace the forest growth. 



This being true, it is extraordinary that 

 our forests should be left without ade(iuate 

 protection by the government. The rail- 

 roads are permitted to run their trains 

 through forest sections and scatter sparks 

 right and left to start destructive confla- 

 grations, when the law should compel the 



uSe of spark arresters. At the same time 

 the woods and forests are unpatroUed, and 

 when a tire is started it is allowed to travel 

 over a large area before efforts are made to 

 stop its progress. 



The prolonged drought in the Eastern 

 States is teaching a costly object lesson, 

 which can hardly be lost upon our law- 

 makers. Hundreds of square milles of 

 valuable timber have already been destroyevi 

 in several States, together with mills, 

 dwellings and growing crops. The los.ses 

 in New -Jersey will jjrobably exceed those 

 of any previous year. Longer neglect by 

 the State Legislature to provide safeguards 

 for the woodlands of the State will be 

 simply criminal. 



A Setback For Scientific Forestry. 



Lebanon, 0., Reporter. 



'People interested in scientific forestry 

 will regret to learn of the suspension of the 

 Cornel College of Forestry. This is a 

 serious setback for a movement in practical 

 education from which very much in the 

 way of good results was expected. In- 

 stead of the blow being administered by 

 ignorant outsiders it seems to have been 

 given by the scientific foresters themselves. 



According to all accounts, the suspension 

 of the institution was due to the inability 

 of the heads of the college to use good 

 judgement in construing the purpose of the 

 grants (;f .$1B5,00(J worth (80.000 acres) 

 of forest and $50,000 in money. Since this 

 was done on account of complaints of 

 denudation of forests by lumbermen, the 

 plain purpose was to aid and demonstrate 

 the preservation of forests. Pre.servation 

 does not mean denudation. But the college 

 took the grf)und that the purpo.se was to 

 teach the pupils how to utilize forest pro- 

 ducts and proceeded to give the instruction 

 which they could have obtained in any lum- 

 ber camp by denuding 1,500 acres of land 

 in three years and replanting, according to 

 the legislative report, only 275. The in- 

 struction that the state intended to secure 



was how to preserve the forest by remov- 

 ing only the fully matured timber, leaving 

 the forest as a whole intact. This the 

 college appears to have wholly failed to do, 

 and it is fairly chargeable with the failure 

 to continue the appropriation. In view of 

 the eft'orts being made throughout the 

 country in the direction of forest preserva- 

 tion and the urgent necessity for such 

 eflForts the failure of this experiment in 

 New York is to be regreted." 



The spectacle of a Forestry College, sup- 

 plied with funds by the state to give prac- 

 tical instruction in forest perpetuation 

 going extensively into the work of milling 

 and destroying the few remaining forests 

 of the state as a money making enterprize, 

 must awaken the friends of practical for- 

 estry to the fact that so called scientific 

 forestry as taught by many scientists is a 



dismal failure. 



What has befallen New York is about to 



be accomplished in Indiana, where a sawmill 



is being erected by the Forestry I)Oar(l as 



a means of educating Hoosier farmers in 



the mystery of saving the forests. And 



this upon the property bought by the state 



to be preserved as a permanent forest 



reserve. 



