5o8 Forestry Quarterly. 



in 1898, and when civil government was established in the islands 

 Captain Ahern was the logical candidate for the position as the 

 Director of the Forestry Bureau. His intelligent enthusiasm and 

 capacity for organization are responsible for the success of the 

 bureau. 



Overton Westfeldt Price, Vice-President of the National Con- 

 servation Association and formerly Associate Forester of the 

 United States Forest Service, died on June 11, at his family home 

 in Fletcher, North Carolina. The ultimate cause of death was a 

 nervous disorder from which he had suffered intermittently for 

 years and which had returned in a sudden and acute attack only a 

 few days before his decease ; the immediate cause was a self- 

 inflicted wound which was in itself a symptom of the malady. His 

 untimely death removes from the profession of forestry in Amer- 

 ica one of its best known and ablest members, at the very height of 

 his powers and to its material loss ; while it leaves in the hearts 

 of those who knew his capacity for friendship, his loyalty to noble 

 ideals, his superb courage and fighting power, his stainless honor 

 and rectitude of motive and deed, a vacancy that will not soon be 

 filled. 



The breakdown which closed his life may be traced back to his 

 work in the Forest Service, where for years he had thrown him- 

 self ardently into the upbuilding of a system of national forestry. 

 In this work he developed extraordinary^ powers of organization 

 and administration. During the last two or three years of his term 

 in public office particularly, he carried the main burden of internal 

 administration of the Forest Service, doing his utmost to leave his 

 chief, Mr. Pinchot, free to deal with the larger questions of policy 

 and to wage his fight for national conservation. Under the strain 

 imposed upon him by the conditions which immediately preceded 

 the conclusion of his official responsibilities his strength was taxed 

 to the utmost verge ; and he never subsequently regained perfect 

 health. 



Mr. Price was born on January 27, 1873, in Liverpool, England, 

 whither his parents had gone from North Carolina to live after 

 the close of the Civil War. He received his earlier education in 

 that country and at the Episcopal High School near Alexandria, 



