Periodical Literature. ill 



be increased to $io if the value of the plants were included. 

 The main causes of failure in planting have been excessive 

 moisture, invasion by heather and brush, damage by game, (espe- 

 cially stags), and drouth. Buffault concludes that direct seed- 

 ing must be abandoned as too costly and because the results are 

 too uncertain. On the other hand, the plantations give suf- 

 ficiently satisfactory results to justify being continued provided 

 the soil is first drained and cleared. Preference is given to 

 Scotch Pine and Pedunculate Oak. Interesting experiments are 

 to be carried on with important American and foreign species. 



T. S. W., Jr. 



Revue des Eaux et Forets, November 15, 1913, pp. 673-681. 



Smythies of the Indian Forest Service 

 Silvicultural reviews at length the silvical characteristics 



Systems and methods of handling Chir pine. He 



for sl'iows that during the past 50 years a num- 



Chir Pine. ber of silvicultural methods have been used 



in the Himalaya Mountains in British In- 

 dia, notably the shelterwood selection and group methods. The 

 shelter wood system seems to be unsatisfactory where it is neces- 

 sary to sacrifice young stands in order to obtain regularity. There 

 are also objections to the application of the group and selection 

 methods'. Mr. Smythies makes a plea for the treatment of the 

 species without respect to a system of management, the method 

 to be varied in each compartment according to the needs of the 

 species. 



T. S. W., Jr. 



Indian Forester, November, 1913, pp. 513-525. 



Before 1870 various fire insurance cora- 

 Forest Fire panics wrote insurance against forest fires, 



Insurance but the experiences of the large fires in 



in 1870, especially in the Gascony pineries, 



France. led to the abandonment of this kind of 



insurance. Since that time mutual insur- 

 ance has been successfully attempted. It was figured that if the 

 whole pineries of the departments of Gironde and Landes had 

 been insured at 20 cents per acre and on average valuation of 

 $24 per acre a company would have made $200,000 from 1858 



8 



