120 Forestry Quarterly. 



viculture are no longer distinct. The District organizations are 

 duplicates of that in Washington with the natural addition of 

 such offices as Timber Sales and Planting. This change greatly 

 reduces the force in Washington, many of the clerks also having 

 been transferred West. Although the District organization looks 

 decidedly top-heavy on paper, the move is undoubtedly a wise 

 and necessary one, destined to markedly increase the ultimate 

 efficiency of the Service in handling its National Forest prob- 

 lems. For the sake of its esprit de corps it is to be hoped that 

 the Forest Service will not be again reorganized for a long time. 



Railroad companies in the East are coming in for a large 

 amount of criticism in connection with the losses from forest 

 fires during 1908. In Pennsylvania it is alleged that more than 

 four-fifth of the disastrous fires are caused by the railroads, and 

 Representative Creasy, of the State legislature, has introduced a 

 measure to "require the railroads to use every precaution to 

 prevent forest fires, and also compel the railroads to extinguish 

 the fires which they cause." In New York state, it is stated 

 that more fires were started by sparks and coals from railroad 

 engines than from any other cause, and the patrol which was 

 maintained along the line of the New York Central Railroad 

 extinguished over 500 incipient fires. It is natural, therefore, 

 that the states should attempt to pass drastic regulations against 

 the railroads, and in New York we find that the Commission ad- 

 vocates that the railroads be made to pay the entire cost of patrol 

 along their lines, the present arrangement being that the State 

 pays one-half of this cost. The New York State Commission 

 furthermore states that "danger from fire is so imminent, and 

 the necessity for preservation so great, that, at whatever cost it 

 may entail, railroad companies operating within the forest pre- 

 serve of the State should be compelled to use some substitute for 

 coal for fuel ; something that will not create fire to be thrown 

 from grates or stacks into the dry, powder-like growth that 

 abounds along their rights of way. 



This kind of legislation is characteristic of the narrow-minded 

 attitude which legislators have adopted toward railroad companies 

 during the past few years. No one denies the seriousness of the 

 forest fire question, but it should be understood that the railroads 

 are as anxious as anyone to have this menace to our resources 



