50 Forestry Quarterly. 



enters a plea for a more rational system to encourage forestry 

 methods among the lumbermen — and annual land tax with the 

 timber exempt until cut. 



The report closes with an account of the Lake States Forestry 

 Conferences and the State Conservation Commission and an 

 appendix containing the State Forestry Laws. 



J. H. W. 



Seventh Report of the Forest Commissioner of the State of 

 Maine, ipo8. E. E. Ring, 103 pp., illustrated. 



The biennial report of the Forest Commissioner of Maine shows 

 a reported loss from forest fires in 1908 of $618,816, with 142,130 

 acres burned. Credit is given the system of state fire wardens for 

 preventing a far greater loss, a statement substantiated by the 

 fact that the loss in the organized towns not so protected was 

 greater than in the unsettled and timbered portion of the State. 



Professor W. J. Morse, of the Maine Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, contributes an important article on White Pine blight, in 

 which he shows that this trouble is coincident with and un- 

 doubtedly caused by unusually severe winter exposure and is 

 therefore of a temporary nature. 



The text of the recent decision of the Maine Supreme Court 

 is given, upon the question of the right of the State to regulate 

 by law the sizes of timber which an owner may cut from his 

 own land. It is not generally understood that this decision was 

 rendered under a constitutional provision which directs the Su- 

 preme Court to render decisions as to the constitutionality of pro- 

 posed legislation of importance to the state, when formally re- 

 quested to do so by the Senate. No such law has been passed in 

 Maine, but the discussion of the constitutionality of a proposed 

 measure limiting the cutting of trees to 12 inches on the stump 

 gave rise to the above request and decision. The decision was 

 rendered on the points as to whether the restriction of cutting 

 or destruction of small trees by the owners thereof without com- 

 pensation was constitutional, or was a taking of private prop- 

 erty for public purposes and public uses for which compensation 

 must be made. The court took the broad ground that the state 

 had power "to prescribe regulations to promote the health, peace, 

 morals, education and good order of its people, and to legislate 



