596 JOURNAI. OF FORESTRY 



favorable weather and also as a result of a publicity campaign, the fire 

 losses were unusually small. Brush disposal has become a regular con- 

 dition in timber permits and with satisfactory results, and other meas- 

 ures for improvement in logging operations seem to find gradual 

 entrance. 



The work of the Forest Products Laboratories has, of course, also 

 been hampered by reduction of staff due to war conditions. It is car- 

 ried on in four divisions, namely, timber physics, timber tests, wood 

 preservation, and pulp and paper. Perhaps the most ambitious work, 

 which has just come from the press and which will be reviewed sepa- 

 rately, is the study of Canadian Douglas Fir. 



B. E. F. 



Forests and Cliihli Floods. By D. Y. Lin, Nanking, China. Pp. 13. 

 1918. 



The remarkable progress in forestry propaganda in China in recent 

 years indicates better things for Chinese forestry in the near future. 

 This is an encouraging outlook, as there is no other considerable area 

 of the earth where the organization and development of public and 

 private forestry is so much needed. Mr. Lin has already proved him- 

 self a past master in arousing his countrymen to the great economic 

 need of forests in the various Chinese provinces. Through his untir- 

 ing efforts as a lecturer, as a teacher, and as a publicist, forestry is 

 rapidly becoming known in China. He has recently organized the 

 Chinese Forestry Association and has been a leader in Arbor Day 

 activities. In December, 1917, he made an investigation of the vast 

 flooded area about Tientsin. This flood of late last year completely 

 ruined or caused more or less damage to 17,646 villages. There were 

 more than five and a half million suft'erers from the flood, most of 

 whom were rendered homeless by it. 



The pamphlet under review is an English translation by the author 

 of his pamphlet in Chinese, published in a large edition for wide dis- 

 tribution in China. Mr. Lin in his plea for control of floods by exten- 

 sive afforestation quotes many engineers and scientists working in 

 China in support of his contention that afforestation on an extensive 

 scale is necessary to arrest the present vast amount of ruin and damage 

 from periodic floods. 



It appears that the damage is largely due to the vast amount of silt 

 brought down from the denuded uplands. The silt fills the stream beds, 

 thus reducing their capacity for carrying water. As a result, embank- 

 ments are broken and the adjacent country flooded. 



