20 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Coming Meetings 



THERE IS EVERY REASON to believe that the comiug meeting 

 of the Indiana Hardwood Lumbermen's Association, which 

 will be held at the Hotel Dennison, Indianapolis, on Thursday, 

 January 16, wUl be a successful function in every way. A program 

 of the meeting just issued shows that some mighty good papers 

 will be read. E. M. Elliott, prominent in railroad circles in 

 Indianapolis, will talk on "Co-operation Between Railroads and 

 Shipping Interests." He will be followed by W. M. Prall, super- 

 intendent of car service at Pittsburgh, who will talk on "Inter- 

 dependent Relationship of the Shipper and the Railroad in Service, 

 with Direct Relationship to Demurrage Rules and Regulations. ' ' 

 Judge Wood, chairman of the railroad commission of Indiana, will 

 follow with a talk on "The Shipper -and Railroad Regulation." 

 This offers an excellent trio of speakers, as they are amply qualified 

 to talk instructively and authoritatively on the various questions 

 bearing on the important subject of transportation. Chandler 

 Coulter of Purdue University will then give a talk on "Forestry.'' 

 The banquet will follow the business meeting in the evening. 



The annual meeting of the American Forestry Association took 

 place at Washington, D. C, on January 8, 1913, at the Hotel Wil- 

 lard. This was the thirty-first annual meeting of this association. 

 The program included regular business, directors' meetings and 

 many addresses of value. A luncheon was served at noon at the 

 hotel. 



A call for the second Lake States Forest Fire Conference has 

 been issued by Governor Charles S. Osborn of Michigan, the 

 conference to be held at Lansing, Mich., January 21 and 22. The 

 call comes directly from the governor and states that : 



Whereas, the timber resources in the lake states are rapidly 

 decreasing, and largely through the agency of forest fires; and. 



Whereas, a complete realization of this loss, together with the 

 knowledge of means of control and prevention, would be welcomed 

 by all interests, the governor of state of Michigan invites all those 

 interested to meet in conference, and to devise ways and means 

 to obtain and spread such knowledge relative to the preservation 

 of timber as may be possible. 



Secretary-Treasurer J. P. Bartelle of the Union Association of 

 Lumber and Sash and Door Salesmen, with headquarters at Toledo, 

 O., announces the banquet of that association at 7 p. m., January 

 20, at the Hotel Statler, Cleveland, O. 



The American Wood Preservers' Association will hold its ninth 

 annual convention at the Sherman hotel, Chicago, January 21, 22, 

 and 23. A number of papers, by experts in particular lines, are 

 listed for presentation, and promise to make this meeting of much 

 interest and value to those who attend. The field of the wood 

 preserver is a broad one. Among other commodities, it includes 

 railway ties, ear material, bridge and other structural timbers, 

 piling, poles, cross arms, and paving blocks. There is constantly 

 something new being discovered in preservative materials, and the 

 exchange of ideas and comparison of experiments at these annual 

 meetings, always mark an advance. Progress in wood preservation 

 has been rapid in recent J'ears, but there is no reason to suppose 

 that it is to be less rapid in the future. It is acknowledged to be 

 one of the most practical ways of conservation. It is better to 

 double the period of service of one set of timbers than to use two 

 sets. It is cheaper and in other ways more economical. By 

 treating cheap or quickly decaying wood it can be made to take 

 the place of timbers that are scarce and high priced. The field 

 is constantly enlarging, and methods are improving, with the 

 object constantly in view of making present supplies of timbers 

 wear out instead of rotting out. 



R. S. Kellogg, secretary of the Northern Hemlock and Hardwood 

 Manufacturers' Association, with offices at Wausau, Wis., an- 

 nounces the annual meeting of his association at the Hotel Pfister, 

 Milwaukee, on Wednesday, January 29. 



The annual meeting of the Michigan Association of Traveling 

 Lumber and Sash and Door Salesmen, with headquarters at 

 Detroit, Mich., will be held at Kalamazoo, Mich., on February 3, 



To Check Forest Fires 



A CIRCULAR has been distributed throughout the country, 

 with Curt Thiersch as author, advocating a new plan, which 

 is not altogether new, of checking fires in coniferous forests by 

 planting belts of broadleaf species at intervals. The method 

 consists of cutting lanes of sufficient width through the forests 

 and planting hardwoods in place of the needleleaf trees removed. 

 Cross lanes of the same kind will complete the scheme of defense. 

 The evergreen forests will thus be divided into blocks or squares 

 of such size as the forest engineer in charge shall decide upon. 



The plan is based on the well-known fact that a broadleaf forest 

 usually burns more slowly than one of the needleleaf type. In 

 the former, the fire creeps along the ground, consuming the mat 

 of fallen leaves, and is seldom fierce or fast, unless dry ground 

 litter is unusually abundant; but the reverse is generally the 

 situation when resinous trees, such as pines, firs, and spruces, burn. 

 Fire is apt to climb to the crowns and envelope the whole forest, 

 from ground to tree tops, in a mass of flame. This is particularly 

 liable to occur if the wind is strong. Such a fire is difficult to 

 check. In fact, it frequently gets beyond human control and runs 

 until it is stopped by open country, or is extinguished by rain. 



The plan proposed by Mr. Thiersch has some merit, but it is 

 evidently based on theory rather than practical experience and a 

 recognition of the laws of tree growth. Some railroads have tried 

 it along their rights of way with success. The green crowns are 

 good spark arresters; and the dead leaves can be raked from the 

 ground to prevent surface fires from creeping through. Under 

 similar conditions strips of hardwoods t?hrough pine forests would 

 do as well; but the conditions would seldom be similar. Unless 

 the ground were kept raked clean, a fire would approach through 

 the pines, crawl across the belt of hardwoods, and in five minutes 

 be running wild on the other side. The hardwood belt would, 

 however, provide an admirable line of defense for fire fighters. 

 If they were there at the right time, and in sufficient numbers, 

 they could generally stop the fire, provided it were a moderate 

 one. They could not, however, stop a violent crown fire, unless 

 the hardwood belt were very wide. Crown fires have been known 

 to leap half a mile. Fires of that kind are, however, an excep- 

 tion to the rule and should not be urged as a reason against trying 

 the hardwood belt method, if it seems otherwise practicable. 



A fundamental fact seems to have been overlooked in suggesting 

 tlie jilan. It has been assumed that broadleaf trees will grow in 

 strips where the pines are cut out. In some cases they will, but in 

 most cases they will not. If the climate and soil were such that 

 hardwoods could grow, the pines would not be there. The broad- 

 leaf trees would already be in possession. The principal needleleaf 

 forests needing protection against fire are those on the high, dry, 

 sterile mountains and plateaus of the West. Only hardwoods of 

 the most miserable sort, often mere brush, and sometimes not 

 even that, will grow there. It is impossible to put the hardwood 

 belt scheme into practice in that region, and it comprises about a 

 million square miles, and includes nearly all the softwoods forests 

 that are now suffering greatly from fire. 



The broadleaf species are generally much stronger and more 

 aggressive than the softwoods, in fighting for ground. When 

 both have an equal chance, the former generally get possession 

 and hold it. But the pines can get along on ground so poor and 

 dry that their competitors cannot grow there. The result is that 

 in the natural arrangement of forests in this country, the needleleaf 

 trees have been crowded from the fertile ground and have occupied 

 dry, poor, and cold situations where their broadleaf competitors 

 would starve to death if they tried to follow. Therefore, to 

 advocate the planting of the hardwoods in such situations is to 

 ignore one of the fiats of nature. 



It should not be supposed that the forest areas, belts, and stands 

 simply happen to be where they are. They have arranged themselves 

 in accordance with laws of plant ecology which have been developed 

 during thousands of years of competition and struggle, and it is not 

 in man's power to change these laws, or to annul them, except to a 

 very limited extent. 



