SERVICE NOTES FOR MARCH. 



These notes contain instructions and necessary information for 

 Forest officers, and will, therefore, be carefully read and kept on tile 

 for reference. 



OFFICE OF THE FORESTER. 



Promise Record and Follow-Up System 



A system of recording promises and following up matters involving future action 

 has been devised and will be put in operation as soon as instructions now in prepa- 

 ration can be issued. By this system the method of filing promise and reminder 

 cards in use in the Washington office will be extended to the offices of chief inspectors 

 and supervisors, and to all regular field headquarters of the Forest Service except 

 rangers' headquarters, where desk calendars will be used. A convenient method is 

 provided for keeping record of requests made for report or other action. 



The equipment for the promise-card record will be the standard office promise- 

 card box, daily and monthly time guides, 3 by 5 inches, and white cards, 3 by 5 

 inches. The same equipment will be used in the follow-up system, with the addi- 

 tion of printed cards to accompany papers sent into the field for report. Chief 

 inspectors and supervisors who have not already been supplied with promise-card 

 boxes and the accompanying white cards and daily and monthly time guides should 

 make requisition for them at once. 



LAW. 



Trespass 



The decision in the case of United States c. Shannon (see Use Book, p. 210) ren- 

 dered March 18, 1907, by the United States circuit court for Montana, was affirmed 

 on February 3 by the circuit court of appeals, ninth circuit. 



Complaint was filed on February 11 by the United States attorney for Colorado 

 against John C. Teller, of Denver, Colo., the Union Pacific Railroad, and the Carbon 

 Timber Company for $363,795, the value of 921,000 railroad ties which are alleged to 

 have been cut in trespass upon the Medicine Bow National Forest, Wyoming. 



BRANCH OF SILVICULTURE. 



OFFICE OF FOREST MANAGEMENT. 



Payments in Timber Sales 



Regulation 26 of The Use Book, as well as all timber sale contracts which have 

 not been formally modified, requires that the timber shall be paid for in advance of 

 cutting. In sales in which a bond has been given it is necessary that payments be 

 kept well in advance of the actual cutting, in order that there may be no danger of 

 relieving the sureties from liability. Payments should be checked by supervisors 

 upon the receipt of cutting reports from the field. . The attention of Forest officers is 

 particularly directed to the fact that the actual cut, rather than the amount of timber 

 scaled, should be the basis for the deposits, since in many contracts the amount of 

 timber cut necessarily exceeds, to a considerable extent, the amount scaled. 



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