News and Notes. 317 



The Agricultural Appropriation Bill, in the form in which it 

 passed the House, did not include the appropriation of $1,000,000 

 asked for by the Forest Service for emergency fire fighting. The 

 Forest Service expended about $900,000 in fighting the big fires 

 of 1910, this being in excess of their appropriation and was 

 covered by Congressional Act. It is of course the hope that the 

 fire season of 1910 will never be duplicated, but even under the 

 improved conditions and with the effective aid rendered by the 

 lumbermen's fire association, it is unsafe to anticipate that emer- 

 gency funds will not be required. The roads, trails, and telephone 

 lines which are being built by the Forest Service will help very 

 materially in preventing or reducing fire damage ; but in the same 

 Bill the current appropriation of $500,000 for this purpose was 

 reduced to $275,000, so that the preparations for preventing and 

 controlling fires cannot go forward as rapidly as is desirable. In 

 view of the loss of $12,000,000 worth of timber in 1910 and of 79 

 fire fighters and 25 settlers, the full appropriation asked for by the 

 Service would be none too large ; but it must be remembered that 

 certain members of Congress are still not heartily in sympathy 

 with National Forest work, and we should perhaps be grateful 

 that Congress has granted an appropriation sufficient to maintain 

 an efficient, although inadequate organization. If the half million 

 dollars requested for preventive measures was granted, it would 

 amount to only one-fourth of one per cent, of the value of the 

 timber standing to-day on the National Forests, and certainly no 

 one should begrudge such a nominal expenditure for the protec- 

 tion of resources whose money value approximates over half a 

 billion dollars and whose indirect benefits are incalculable. 



The Forest Service is preparing to issue a folio to contain 

 separate maps of North America, upon each of which will be 

 shown the geographic distribution of a single tree species. This 

 will be the most accurate and exhaustive representation of this 

 subject which has yet been attempted. Such a set, based upon 

 all accessible printed data, is already in existence in the Facutly 

 of Forestry of the University of Toronto, in constant use by the 

 students. 



