NEWS AND NOTES. 

 E. A. Sterling, In Charge. 



The recently created position of State Forester of Maryland was 

 filled on July 1 by the appointment of Fred W. Besley, with head- 

 quarters at John Hopkins University, Baltimore. Mr. Besley, who 

 is a graduate of the Maryland Agricultural College and the Yale 

 Forest School, takes to his new work a varied experience of several 

 years as Student and Forest Assistant in the Forest Service. 



During the last session of the California legislature laws com- 

 mended by the Forest Service were enacted which extended and im- 

 proved the fire laws upon the statute books of the State, and created 

 the new office of State Forester. 



The first of last July marked the close of the first year for this 

 California forest organization and was attended by a change of ad- 

 ministration in the office. E. T. Allen, the first State Forester, re- 

 signed his position to take up other work, and was immediately suc- 

 ceeded by G. B. Lull, of the Forest Service. 



Mr. Allen's administration has been a most successful one, and in 

 the year during which he held office there has been a striking advance 

 made in the appreciation and practice of forestry in California. 

 Convinced that the future of forestry in any region is founded upon 

 protection from forest fire, Mr. Allen's first step was a campaign to 

 arouse public sentiment to a realization of the damage caused by the 

 spread of unchecked annual fires, and to organize an efficient corps 

 of fire wardens throughout the state, as permitted under the new law. 



The people of the State were not slow to perceive the advanta- 

 ges offered them by the new forest administration, and the prestige 

 of the Forester's office has been firmly established. Besides the or- 

 ganization of the fire-warden system, cooperation with private own- 

 ers in forest work has been undertaken, and calls upon the office for 

 technical advice have been frequent from lumbermen, stockmen, and 

 others interested in the forest resources of the State. With such 

 success in interesting the people of the State attained in its first 

 year, the future of the Forester's office in California is very bright, 

 opening perhaps a better field of work than exists in any other State 

 in the country. 



