NEWS AND NOTES. 



For the first time the Western Forestry and Conservation As- 

 sociation held its annual meeting in Canada at Vancouver, B. C, 

 December 15 and 16. This association has been a most import- 

 ant factor, not only in timber protection, but in moulding public 

 opinion. At the meeting, reports of progress made in the five 

 States of the West v^ere given, and, in addition, a large share of 

 the time -was devoted to the discussion of problems pertaining 

 particularly to British Columbia. Practical questions were dis- 

 cussed during the two days' session, participated in by timber- 

 land owners, forestry officials and railroad officials, on both sides 

 of the line. Fire protection in all its phases was the principal 

 topic, involving modern methods for fire-prevention, fire-fighting, 

 and communication in the forest. The session was brought to a 

 close by a banquet given by the British Columbia lumbermen. 



It was stated at the meeting that "The best single result of the 

 1913 fire season has shown that systematized co-operative effort 

 at an insignificant cost per acre, or per thousand, can reduce our 

 forest losses of an average year from four or five million dollars 

 to about as many thousands, on the twenty million acres of tim- 

 ber lands controlled by the lumbermen forming this association." 



There are now thirty timber-owners' associations in the United 

 States, the members of which have got together to adequately 

 protect from fire their combined holdings, which now total about 

 25,000,000 acres. 



In Canada, there is but one association of this kind, the St. 

 Maurice Fire Protective Association. The Quebec limit-holders 

 comprising this association have, by a self-imposed tax of one- 

 quarter cent per acre, installed a fire protective system on their 

 7,000,000 acres of holdings. In 1913 over 275 forest fires were 

 extinguished with practically no danger, proving, in the words of 

 the members, that "The success of co-operative forest fire pro- 

 tection has been estabUshed without a doubt." 



After the disastrous forest fires in 191 1 the Michigan State 

 Forestry Department conceived the idea of organizing the Boy 

 Scouts into a protective association. Last year 3,000 scouts were 



