724 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



public school teacher in the city of St. Louis has a cata- 

 logue of this library at hand, and by 'phoning for any 

 particular book, he or she may have it delivered at once 

 by automobile. The "Record of Delivery" of specimens 

 to the city schools, by the same prompt plan, shows that 

 during the years 1914-15 there was thus delivered 72,173 

 specimens, the same being returned to the museum build- 

 ing after the class demonstrations. The institution is 

 financially very strong ($11,709.52). while the annual ex- 

 pense per pupil is but 0.14J<j. 



The number of the individual collections in the mu- 

 seum is 1750. and 7000 individual and duplicate collec- 

 tions constitute the traveling museum. The number of 

 lantern slides is 4000 ; stereoscopes 8000, colored charts 

 and photographs 2000. 



In the case of the "traveling museum," the material 

 "is sent to the schools by a large automobile truck in 

 the service of the museum. The schools are divided into 

 five sections, each of which has a delivery day once a 

 week. The principal of a school which has its delivery 

 day on Monday asks his teachers on the preceding Fri- 

 day to send him the numbers of all the collections in the 

 museum catalogue they will need for the illustrations 

 of their lectures during the following week. These num- 

 bers he inserts in an order blank for the curator, and on 

 the following Monday the wagon delivers the material at 

 the school, taking back at the same time the collections 

 used during the previous week." 



There are printed instructions how to best use this ma- 

 terial, also a beautifully illustrated catalogue of the col- 

 lection in the museum building. Other helpful and most 

 excellent booklets and pamphlets are issued, and the en- 

 tire system is certainly a most extensive and efficient 

 one. 



The District of Columbia, it would seem, could, in 

 time, easily follow the St. Louis plan as above outlined ; 

 for it must have, in its various Federal museums, a per- 

 fect mass of duplicate material along every line required 

 by the nature study teachers in the public schools of the 

 Nation's Capital. It would seem, too, that it might be 

 a good plan to utilize some of this material in this way, 

 and thus throw a little life into what is now largely dead 

 timber. 



In New Brunswick, during 1920, there were 312 for- 

 est fires from all causes, burning over 94,787 acres, and 

 representing a monetary loss of $690,306. 



OAK AND ELM FORM REMARKABLE 

 TWIN TREE 



BY ROBERT H. MOULTON 



WHAT may be called the "Siamese twins" of the tree 

 world is found on an island, formed by two 

 branches of the Mississippi River, at Rock Island, Illi- 

 nois. The island in question, which is occupied by an 

 arsenal of the United States Government, embraces some 

 two hundred acres of luxuriant forest, comprising many 

 varieties of trees, and almost in the center of it is the 

 twin tree, an oak and an elm, the trunks of which having 

 grown close together many years ago appear to be merged 

 into a single bole to a height of five or six feet. At this 

 height the trunks are entirely separate, each bearing its 



DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MODERN 

 RANGER AND PIONEER 



Ex-Forest Ranger Robinson was recently quoted in one 

 of the San Francisco papers as follows: 



"Fellow named Robinson, who is in the Forest Service 

 up Sonora way, postcards down that the only difference 

 between the modern ranger and the pioneers is that while 

 the latter blazed the trails, the former trails the blazes." 



THE "SIAMESE-TWIN" TREES 



own peculiar bark formation and foliage. However, 

 throughout the line of apparent merging into one trunk 

 there is a clearly discernible line of demarcation between 

 oak and elm, this being readily seen in the different sorts 

 of bark. Apparently the trees were growing side by side 

 when saplings. The twin tree has been estimated to be 

 a hundred years old but is still of vigorous growth. It 

 may have been noted by the Indians who once camped 

 on the island, and it is even possible that the people had 

 something to do, either by accident or design, with the 

 remarkable formation. 



