NATIONAL FOREST WORK 



Aeroplanes to Protect Forests 



Maj. Frank A. Fenn, supervisor of the 

 Selway forest, embracing 1,600,000 acres 

 formerly part of the Nez Perce reserve in 

 north central Idaho, predicts that the time 

 is not far distant when aeroplanes and 

 wireless telegraphy will be important fac- 

 tors in protecting timbered land in the Pa- 

 cific slope country. He thinks a man in a 

 flying machine could do more accurate and 

 extensive survey work in the mountains in 

 a few hours than is usually accomplished 

 by a force of twenty rangers in a week 

 when forest fires are raging, and with wire- 

 less stations installed on peaks in the chief 

 danger points it would be a comparatively 

 easy task to assemble men and apparatus 

 to check and extinguish the flames and 

 prevent spreading. Major Fenn, who is 

 stationed at Kooskia, has completed prepa- 

 ration to handle fire outbreaks and has 

 forty men patroling the reserve, in addi- 

 tion to which are twenty men stringing 

 telephone lines and building trails and 

 wagon I'oads. Charles Fisher, with head- 

 quarters at Orofino, has charge of the Clear- 

 water reserve, also formerly part of the 

 Nez Perce forest. One hundred and twenty 

 miles of telephone lines are in operation 

 through the mountains from Kooskia to 

 Powell station on the Licksaw via the Sel- 

 way and Graves creek, and it is planned 

 to extend the line this year through the 

 Lolo pass to Lolo Hot Springs, Montana, 60 

 miles from Powell station. 



First Purchase for Appalachian Forest 



Nashville lumbermen are first to score 

 in selling land to the government for the 

 establishment of the Appalachian National 

 Forest. Our issue of last week contained 

 a brief notice of the approval by the com- 

 mission of the purchase of a tract of some 

 32,000 acres in Fannin, Union, Gilmer and 

 Lumpkin counties, lying along the head- 

 waters of the Toccoa River, an important 

 tributary of the Tennessee. 



The tract embraces the entire holding in 

 that neighborhood of Messrs. Andrew and 

 N. H. Gennett, both natives of Nashville, 

 who started in the lumber business here, 

 and later removed to Fort Madison, S. C, 

 where they successfully operated a big band 

 mill for several years. Selling this plant 

 with its important timber holdings to a 

 prominent Baltimore operator, the Messrs. 

 Gennett invested heavily in timberlands in 

 both the Carolinas and in north Georgia. 



They have sold some very large tracts 

 recently to be operated by lumbermen. 



Having a thorough personal knowledge 

 of the entire Southern Appalachian field, 

 and having made a study of what the For- 

 est Service at Washington is attempting to 

 do in the establishment of a national forest 

 in the Appalachian region, the Messrs. Gen- 

 nett were in position to go before the com- 

 mission with a definite and specific offer of 

 a large area admirably located and upon 

 which a thorough cruise of the timber had 

 been made. 



It is announced that the trade will be 

 consummated as soon as titles to the prop- 

 erty can be approved by the government. 

 The deal involves $207,821, the government 

 commission having reported the value of 

 the forest products on the tract to be 

 $152,911.10, and the value of the land 

 $54,909.75. It appears that the tract is 

 pretty good hardwood timber, cutting some- 

 thing like 3,500 feet to the acre. The fol- 

 lowing is the government cruise of the 

 timber, in addition to which there are 2,585 

 cords of hemlock bark and 7,671 cords of 

 chestnut bark: 



White Oak 16,291,044 



Red Oak 18,761,996 



Chestnut Oak 7,585,248 



Chestnut 38,213,560 



Poplar 7,958,764 



Hemlock 3,620,232 



White Pine 833,228 



Locust 632,104 



Miscellaneous 4,453,460 



Total 98,349,636 



In commenting upon the value of this 

 tract, the report of the Forest Service to 

 the commission empowered to buy says: 



"The only thing lacking at the present 

 time to render this tract highly desirable 

 from a lumber operator's standpoint is 

 railroad transportation. There has for 

 years been talk of a railroad between 

 Mineral Bluff and Gainesville, Ga., a dis- 

 tance of 52 miles in an air line. This 

 route has already been surveyed running 

 up Rock Creek, in the southern division of 

 the Gennett tract, and crossing the main 

 summit of the Blue Ridge Mountains at 

 High Tower Gap. This road, if constructed, 

 would tap the largest section of Georgia 

 which is now without railroad transporta- 

 tion. All of this tract would be lumbered 

 economically after the construction of such 

 a railroad. On account of the great natural 

 resources of this region, the construction of 



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