NOTES AND COMMENTS 515 



each cord of wood. Nine hundred pounds of charcoal are the final 

 yield. — Canadian Forestry Journal, March, 1917, p. 1027. 



In these war times the work of Indian entomologists in Persia in 

 the control of flies and vermin is of interest to American foresters. The 

 problem divides itself into (1) disposal of fly-breeding material, (3) 

 fly poisoning, and (3) fly spraying in trenches and hospitals. A copy 

 of the instructions, issued to troops, is given in full in the Indian 

 Forester for January, 1917. 



The Public Domain Commission of Michigan has asked the State 

 Legislature to increase the annual appropriation to $150,000. The com- 

 mission is preparing to carry into effect the most gigantic forest con- 

 servation and tree-planting plan which any State has yet attempted in 

 the United States. The plan is approved by forestry experts at the 

 University of Michigan and the Michigan Forestry Association. It is 

 proposed to plant trees at the rate of 4,500 acres per annum, and in 

 what is known as the rotation period of sixty years. A total of some 

 270,000 acres are to be planted, as called for in the plan. 



Judge Wilbur F. Booth, in the United States district court in 

 Minneapolis, Minn., on March 15 last, handed down a decision in the 

 Government suit against the Northwestern Lumbermen's Association, 

 a retail lumber dealers' association, representing about 2,700 yards in 

 the States of Minnesota, Iowa, and the Dakotas. The chief effort of 

 the Government in the suit was directed against the use of "customers' 

 lists," by means of which it was charged that information was dissem- 

 inated to members regarding sales by wholesale merchants and by 

 manufacturers direct to consumers, including mail-order houses and 

 cooperation yards. The decree, as handed down, forbids further 

 activities of this character on the part of the association. The present 

 civil suit was begun in 1913, after criminal proceedings started in 1911 

 had been dropped. The final arguments in the case were made during 

 the latter part of 1914, and the decision has only now been handed 

 down. This suit was one of several started some years ago to break 

 up the alleged "lumber trust." It has been regarded as of much im- 

 portance, and the exceedingly voluminous records were reported in the 

 lumber trade journals as the suit progressed. The association states 

 that the activities now forbidden were discontinued before the suit was 



