COMMENT. 



It is a pity that our national carelessness prevents us from se- 

 curing all the good things from abroad without allowing the bad 

 things to slip in also. The first two articles at the beginning of 

 this number accentuate the need of developing greater care in 

 importing material as well as ideas and policies, without closer 

 investigation. 



More than a decade ago the need of fumigating imported plant 

 material was fully established, and to-day there is as yet no 

 efficient protection against the importation of fungus diseases ; 

 and also while in general the propriety of adopting European 

 methods in handling forest resources has been descried, methods 

 which experience in Europe has proved undesirable and inefficient 

 are nevertheless imported. 



The "free use" permit, against which Mr. White's article 

 brings cogent argument, suggests the cancer of which German 

 forest management has suffered for centuries and from which it 

 has only lately been cured — the rights of user or forest servitudes. 



It has taken a century, and millions of dollars to get rid of this 

 incubus, which, starting by permits grew into rights to free use. 

 just to give an idea of what such rights may eventually amount to 

 in value we may recall a note from the last number of the Quar- 

 terly to the effect that the city of Eberswalde, where the Prussian 

 Forest Academy is located, had just succeeded in freeing its 

 forest property from such incumbrance by paying $125,000 to 

 the 316 house owners for the right to secure their fuel from the 

 city forest ; and it is calculated that this investment will return 

 six and one-half per cent, by the improved utilization. 



While it may have been wisdom to grant these free permits in 

 the National Forests as a sop to the good will of the population 

 adjoining, it will also be wisdom to withdraw these grants as soon 

 as practicable. 



The appearance of a fungus enemy to the white pine from a 

 country, in which that pine is not indigenous opens up a rather 

 interesting biological problem. In the larch saw fly and the 

 gypsy moth we have had experience of an imported pest thriving 

 better and doing more damaere in its new home than in the 



