404 EDITORIAL NOTES. [April 



pressed with the great benefit to forest transport of the small 

 railways invented by M. Decauville, which some readers may have 

 also examined at tlie late Forestry Exhibition. The same body had 

 also initiated strong Parliamentary opposition to the proposal laid 

 before the Chamber of Deputies to relegate the administration of the 

 communal forestal domains to the municipal councils : such a course 

 might entail serious risk to many million hectares of forest trees, 

 and at the same time also peril climatal and meteorological condi- 

 tions necessary for successful agriculture. 



Bismakck's Proposed Import Duties on Wood. — The Swedish 

 wood merchants do not relish the prospect of paying on their 

 exports so much as 2 marks (2 fr. 50) the 100 kilog., which means 

 about 60 marks (75 francs) the standard, or about 50 per cent, of 

 the value of the wood. Such heavy import duties just prohibit the 

 import of sawn wood into Germany ; just as six or seven years ago 

 the import of planed and manufactured woods was in similar 

 fashion interrupted by tlie Grand Chancellor. 



United States Land Legislation. — Switzerland, the land of 

 extreme democracy, possesses an admirable communal forest system, 

 the elements of which existed before the inception of Eepublican 

 government. There appears an inability to grasp the United States 

 forestal problem in a measure commensurate with the greatness of 

 their physical area. The law of 1873 allowing free grants of 160 

 acres of prairie land to every citizen above twenty-one years of age 

 binding himself to plant a sixth part of it with trees, and the 

 Forest Land Grant Act of similar purport of the Pacific Coast 

 passed in 1878, favour individual effort. But there are as yet 

 no provisions for grand forestal conservations necessary to unify 

 such individual efforts. Perhaps forest administrations similar to 

 those of the European or Indian Governments are outside the 

 genius of American legislation. The new proposals of the Public 

 Lands Committee to curb the speculations of British ranche com- 

 panies, by rendering it illegal for corporations with more than 10 

 per cent, of their stock in the hands of aliens, and allowing only 

 railway and canal companies to hold more than 5000 acres of land, 

 may point this way. But the Co-operative Arboricultural Associa- 

 tions of Denmark and Sweden, an account of the operations of one 

 of which was described in our November number, may show such 

 , a practical metliod of afforestation as is apparently demanded. 



