Comment. 367 



present tax revenues slightly for the sake of providing a perpetual 

 rather than a temporary source of income from their forest lands. 



The development of the forest fire association idea in the North- 

 west and the spirit and effectiveness with which the work is being 

 conducted, leads to a renewed hope that we may yet see forestry 

 practiced on private land. The best of it is that foresters are back 

 of it, and that trained men are at the head of at least two of the 

 big associations. Yet they are the kind of men who not many 

 years ago were tolerated by the lumbermen as harmless fanatics. 

 What would the timberland owners of Washington and Oregon 

 have said ten years ago if a forester had told them he could reduce 

 their fire losses to a minimum and apply methods of prevention 

 and control which were really effective? Capital to the extent of 

 millions was invested in timber then as now, and the fire danger 

 was quite as real. It took a full decade of propaganda, backed 

 by tangible results on the National Forests, to carry conviction 

 that the new methods — which are not new, but merely system- 

 atized — were better than the old, which were really no method at 

 all. The elaborate forest working plan idea failed to convert the 

 lumberman, the talk of an immediate timber famine failed to 

 impress him, because he knew better, and all the well-laid schemes 

 failed to make the timberland owner a forester — because it 

 wouldn't pay. Then came the forester with ideas on fire protec- 

 tion, and these have been accepted because they are practical, 

 necessary, and create a credit balance. In fire protection the 

 American forester has found himself, and incidentally been dis- 

 covered by the lumbermen. Following effective fire protection 

 will come forestry. 



In regard to the article on Equipment and Operation of a Ger- 

 man Seed Extracting Establishment, translated by Mr. S. L. 

 Moore and printed in our last issue, pp. 26-44, we are advised by 

 a high authority from Germany, that the article contains a num- 

 ber of statements which do not correspond to the practice, nor 

 are accepted for future plans. 



Especially the gradual movement of the cones into a continu- 

 ously rising temperature is said to be a practical impossibility. 

 A plan for a new, large seed extracting establishment in Marien- 

 werder is being worked out by Oberforster Haak, an authority 

 on this subject (See F. Q. vol. VIII, p. 338), which includes the 

 best modern idea, and we hope eventually to be able to describe it. 



