FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 47 



very recent requests for assistance the most noteworthy is the joint 

 application of the Kirby Lumber Co. and the Houston Oil Co. for help in 

 devising the best method of managing 1.000,000 acres of long-leaf pine 

 land in Texas. This area includes considerably more than half of the 

 long-leaf pine lands in that state. 



Personal examinations in the woods were made during the year past 

 of 788,890 acres of private ownership, and four detailed working plans 

 were prepared, covering an area of 226,000 acres. One of these was for 

 the tract of a lumber company in Arkansas and another for a tract in 

 Missouri owned by the Deering Harvesting Company. The preparation 

 of working plans was begun upon five timber tracts of private ownership, 

 with a total area of (>28,000 acres. The largest of these consisting of 300,- 

 000 acres is in Maine, and owned by the Great Northern Paper Company. 

 The fact that the offer of cooperation under which these working i^lans 

 are made is being taken advantage of so extensively by lumber companies 

 and other business organizations indicates clearly the real practical 

 value of the bureau of forestry to private owners. 



The preparation of working plans for the federal forest reserves goes 

 steadily on. The working plan for the Black Hills forest reserves has 

 been completed, and working plans have been begun for the Prescott, 

 Bighorn and Priest River forest reserves. The immense labor involved 

 in some of these plans is indicated by the fact that for the Black Hills 

 plan alone the diameter of every tree, large or small, was measured on 

 10,234 acres, and complete ring countings were made for 4,500 trees. All 

 these field measurements require painstaking elaboration in the office. 



In cooperation with the state of New York, which appropriated $3,500 

 for that purpose, the field work necessary to a working plan for town- 

 ships 5, 6 and 41, in Hamilton county, in the Adirondack forest preserve, 

 has been completed. The results of similar cooperation in township 40 

 have already been printed (Bull. 30) in the form of a complete working 

 plan. 



DIVISION OF FOREST INVESTIGATION. 



Studies of commercial trees, the practical advantages of which are 

 becoming more and more evident, are included in the work of this division. 

 Extensive studies of the redwood, red fir and hemlock of the Pacific 

 coast have been completed and are ready for publication. Other trees 

 under investigation are the western yellow pine, the loblolly and short- 

 leaf pines, of the south, the more important southern hardwoods, the 

 Adirondack balsam, and the second -growth hardwoods of New England. 

 The location, size and ownership of the big tree groves in the California 

 Sierras have been thoroughly studied for the first time, and much fresh 

 information has been obtained of the character of the tree. 



The region containing the proposed Appalachian forest reserve was 

 examined last year in cooperation with the United States geological 

 survey. The forest on 9,600,000 acres was mapped, the lands were classi- 

 fied, and a careful study was made of the forests. The purpose of this 

 Avork is to point out the good which would result from its careful and 

 conservative management. The creation of the proposed reserve is 

 urgent, in order to protect the headwaters of important streams, to 

 maintain an already greatly impaired supply of timber, and to provide 

 a national recreation ground, which with the single exception of the 



