AMERICAN FORESTRY 



439 



A UNIQUE METHOD OF BIRD STUDY! 



Do You Want to KNOW Our Birds ? 



I THE WAY TO STUDY BIRDS By John Dryden Kuser 



16mo. 9 Illustrations in Color. 



$1.25 



A memual of information regarding some fifty of the more common 

 birds their haunts, description, field marks, size and shape, song 

 and seasonal abundance. To facilitate the identification of species 

 and also by way of throwing light on the duration of their visitations, 

 the birds are classified under those of spring, summer, fall and winter. 

 Illustrations by the well-known bird artist, Louis Agassiz Fuertes. 



1 New York 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



2 West 45th Street 



I 



London i 



abandoned altogether as so many of the 

 field force are absent at the front. For- 

 est protection was carried on as in the 

 past, but owing to shortage of men a less 

 number were employed. The total damage 

 estimated amounted to $49,913.00, as against 

 $108,873.00 for 1915 and $72,057.00 for 1914. 

 The people are beginning to realize from 

 the Forest Branch's campaign of education 

 the necessity of care and are beginning to 

 cooperate heartily. The report shows that 

 the work is being kept up to the same high 

 standard which was set when the work was 

 started and with a strong personnel and 

 good esprit de corps this will be continued. 

 The Manager of Eastern Lands of the 

 Canadian Northern Railway has just 

 returned from a trip through Northern 

 Ontario and says that he believes that 

 there are tributary to the present railways 

 and waterways leading to them, 250,- 

 000,000 cords of spruce pulpwood in 

 Ontario and 350,000,000 cords in Quebec. 

 He says that it is useless to consider 

 timber north of the Transcontinental 

 Railway, as the rivers run north, and only 

 a small portion could be brought up- 

 stream by building dams which would 

 enable the wood to be towed back. 



The campaign against the white pine 

 blister rust is progressing under the 

 Dominion and Provincial Governments. 

 Subject to the general supervision of 

 Dr. J. H. Grisdale, Acting Dominion 

 Botanist, the field work is in charge of 



W. A. McCubbin, of the Field Labora- 

 tory of Plant Pathology at St. Catherines, 

 Ontario. A senior and two junior assistants 

 are provided who will specialize in re- 

 search work calculated to determine the 

 best bethods of control of the disease. 

 The actual work of scouting for the 

 disease and eradicating it will be done 

 by men provided by the Forest Services 

 of Ontario and Quebec, respectively. 

 The salaries of these men will be paid 

 by the Provinces and their traveling ex- 

 penses by the Dominion. There will be 

 twenty in Ontario and the same number 

 in Quebec. Until June 10 the work of 

 location and eradication will be confined 

 to white pine; after that date similar work 

 will be done on currants and gooseberries, 

 the alternate hosts of the blister rust. 

 Work is now under way of clearing both 

 wild and cultivated currants and goose- 

 berries from a strip a mile wide along the 

 bank of the Niagara River, from Niagara- 

 on-the-Lake to Fort Erie, to form a 

 safety belt which will prevent the disease 

 from passing over the river into New 

 York State. On the New York side of 

 the river, similar work will be done by 

 the state for the protection of Ontario. 

 Pine in this territory on both sides of the 

 river will be dealt with later, if necessary. 

 In connection with the location of the 

 disease on currants and gooseberries, it 

 is proposed to utilize the services of 

 school children. The stage of the dis- 



ease on these plants is easily recognized 

 and the pupils will be able to render a 

 valuable public service by reporting any 

 outbreaks found. Literature and colored 

 illustrations will be furnished and instruc- 

 tions given through the teachers. 



The necessity for uniform statistics of 

 forest fires and the damage caused by 

 them is a subject of great importance 

 and likewise of considerable difficulty. 

 It would seem to be necessary to have, 

 whenever a fire occurs, the date, location, 

 cause, area burned over, stand before the 

 fire occurred, timber which can be sal- 

 vaged, and timbed burned. Value of 

 timber or other resource destroyed is 

 also important. The last three items are 

 very difficult to ascertain. Protective 

 agencies cannot be expected in the nature 

 of the case to cruise and accurately de- 

 termine the amount of timber on areas 

 under their care. The ordinary fire 

 ranger is certainly not qualified nor has 

 he the time to make a careful estimate 

 of the amount of timber which can be 

 salvaged, nor the value of the trees de- 

 stroyed. At best the most he can say 

 is: green timber destroyed, or old burn, 

 or logging slash or some such general 

 description, and he can say timber 

 scorched but fit to cut, timber all burnt, 

 etc., and none of these designations are 

 of any real value for statistical purposes. 

 In fact, the determination of areas is 

 really often beyond the capacity of the 

 ranger, and again the difficulty of leaving 



