PROGRESSIVE FORESTRY LEGISLATION IN LOUISIANA 



BY R. D. FORBES 



SUPERINTENDENT OF FORESTRY OF THE CONSERVATION DEPARTMENT OF LOUISIANA 



THHE recent session of the Louisiana Legislature passed 

 * two laws of far-reaching effect along forestry lines, 

 providing an appropriation for the next two years. The 

 appropriation consists of one-fifth of the Severance Tax 

 on forest products, and this fund will amount to between 

 $15,000 and $20,000 per year. The collection of the tax 

 on all natural products severed from the soil has once 

 more been made the business of the Conservation Depart- 

 ment after a lapse of two years and there is every reason 

 to expect that the larger figure will be realized. 



The first of the forestry laws was one empowering 

 the Commissioner of Conservation, as chairman of the 

 Forestry Advisory Board, to promulgate and enforce 



regulations requiring the use of spark arresters and 

 proper ash-pans on all locomotives and stationary en- 

 gines operated within two hundred feet of any wooded or 

 cut-over land. The second law empowers the sale of 

 timber on the Caldwell State Game Preserve on some 

 6,000 acres and to apply the proceeds of the sale to the 

 purchase of new State Forests. This law serves a double 

 purpose: First, it makes of the area a demonstration 

 tract in forest practice; second, it gives much needed 

 funds for the acquisition of State Forests. We are com- 

 ing more and more to the opinion that in spite of the 

 rapid growth of our southern species, the business of rais- 

 ing timber is a public rather than a private undertaking. 



SHOOTING OF REED BIRDS FORBIDDEN BY LAW 



T^ HERE will be no reed or rice bird shooting in 

 -*- New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, 

 District of Columbia, Virginia, North Carolina, South 

 Carolina and Georgia this year. In the past shoot- 

 ing has been permitted from September 1st to November 

 30th, but the new Federal regulations have placed the 

 reed or rice bird, which in reality is the bobolink, on the 

 song bird list. 



Rice planters, particularly in South Carolina, have 

 stated that the reed bird or rice bird does millions of 

 dollars of damage to the rice crop, and as far back as 

 1770 South Carolina placed a bounty upon this bird. It 

 is only during its migratory period that the rice bird is 

 so destructive to South Carolina's rice crops. 



It is when the bobolink is through with reproducing 

 its own kind and takes on a sober coat of mottled yel- 

 lowish gray and ceases to sing, merely uttering the one 

 note "chink-chick," that it becomes a different bird. Then 



it starts on its wonderful journey, and this little bird, 

 not much bigger than a sparrow, goes from 50 north to 

 20 south, covering 4,600 miles, and it does it twice every 

 12 months. When it arrives in Jamaica it is known as 

 the "butter bird." 



The rice bird gets its name from the fact that it is a 

 lover of the wild rice that grows in the estuaries and 

 swamps of the middle Atlantic States, and when it ar- 

 rives in South Carolina the planted rice is "in the milk," 

 and there the planters regard the bird as a pest. 



Wherever there are rice plantations it is necessary to 

 employ "minders," who with powder and shot kill the 

 birds by the thousands or drive them away. The flight of 

 these birds from Jamaica across the Caribbean Sea to 

 South America is somewhat remarkable. For 400 miles 

 there is not a reef or islet where the birds can stop. The 

 birds fly that distance without a stop. From Daily Tri- 

 bune, Johnstown, August 27, 1918. 



PROTECTION OF THE ROADSIDE TREES URGED 



HP HE value of roads to the public depends not only 

 *- upon their usefulness, but upon their beauty. This 

 is the new view of good roads which was endorsed at the 

 annual meeting of the North Carolina Good Roads As- 

 sociation at Wrightsville Beach. 



On the first evening of the Convention State Forester 

 Holmes gave an illustrated lecture on "Securing and 

 Protecting Roadside Trees" in which he urged legisla- 

 tion by the next General Assembly empowering Boards 

 of County Commissioners or other bodies in charge of 

 the roads in the State "to plant, reserve, protect and care 

 for roadside trees" in accordance with plans which it 

 shall be the duty of the State Geological Board to pro- 



vide when so requested. The State Forester argued that 

 whereas, in many parts of North Carolina the chief 

 money crop is the stream of tourists and summer visi- 

 tors, nothing could increase the income from this source 

 like beautiful as well as good roads. A law along the 

 lines suggested, would, he contended, gradually result 

 in a settled policy of maintaining the natural beauty of 

 our roads and of adding to that beauty where this was 

 possible. 



The rough draft of a law which would provide for 

 the making of plans and the growing of roadside trees 

 by the State, and the protection of such trees from 

 mutilation by linemen and advertisers, was read. 



