50 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



laboratory work, Several trips for practical 

 field demonstration have been made to the 

 forest on Moscow Mountain. The work is 

 so arranged that new students who are un- 

 able to attend the full five months over 

 which the course extends may enter for the 

 second term which opens on January 3, and 

 get three months of profitable instruction. 



MADISON OFFERS COURSE IN 

 BOXING AND CRATING 



'T'HERE is a daily loss to shippers and 

 manufacturers conservatively estimated 

 at $500,000 due to poor packing and ex- 

 pensive and improperly designed contain- 

 ers for all classes of domestic and foreign 

 shipments, says a bulletin from the United 

 States Forest Products Laboratory. 



An efficient container must deliver its 

 contents in a satisfactory condition at a 

 minimum cost. Commercial research and 

 mechanical tests at the Forest Products 

 Laboratory on better containers began in 

 191 5 in co-operation with the National As- 

 sociation of Box Manufacturers, and the 

 National Canners and National Wholesale 

 Grocers' Associations. In this work meth- 

 ods and testing equipment which have be- 

 come standard for the box industry were 

 developed. 



The War Department prepared general 

 specifications for overseas shipments from 

 the data accumulated by the laboratory. 

 The laboratory has co-operated with as- 

 sociations and companies in improving the 

 packing of widely varying types of com- 

 modities. These tests and studies, in many 

 cases, resulted in the redesign of the con- 

 tainer. The new design gave increased 

 strength and often decreased the amount 

 of material used in its manufacture ; gave 

 security against pilfering; decreased the 

 cubic contents ; reduced the labor and cost 

 of manufacture; made possible more rapid 

 production of packages ; decreased cost of 

 ocean freight, and permitted improved 

 methods of handling freight. This work 

 is of value to all manufacturers, shippers 

 and dealers, and to the public at large, 

 which is vitally concerned in receiving its 

 necessary commodities in satisfactory and 

 economical containers. 



The demand upon the laboratory for in- 

 formation suggested a series of co-opera- 

 tive training classes for men from various 

 industries. The course lasts five and one- 

 half working days. Reference material 

 and condensed notes are given out and it 

 is necessary for those attending to devote a 

 portion of each evening to study. A series 

 of lectures on kiln drying, glues, fibre 

 board and box woods is given. One sub- 

 ject is studied each day. 



The object of this course is to demon- 

 strate for manufacturers and packers the 

 principles that underlie proper box and 

 crate construction and develop economical 

 containers that will deliver the contents to 

 its destination in a satisfactory condition 

 at a minimum cost. 

 The course is given in the most com- 



pletely equipped box laboratory in the coun- 

 try. For a long time this box testing labo- 

 ratory was the only one in the world, but 

 within the last year the laboratory has aided 

 in planning several commercial laboratories. 



Dates for the next three courses are: 

 January 10-15, 1921 ; March 7-12, 1921 ; 

 May 2-7, 1921. 



All correspondence should be addressed 

 to the Director, Forest Products Labora- 

 tory, Madison, Wisconsin. 



Additional municipal forest plantings in 

 northern New York, including more plant- 

 ing at Malone, where the college super- 

 vised the planting of 45,000 trees last spring. 



Many planting jobs on a smaller scale 

 are being projected, and present indica- 

 tions, months in advance of any possible 

 planting, indicate that all records will be 

 broken for the year's work. 



MICHIGAN AGRICULTURAL 

 COLLEGE 



r PHE Forestry Department has completed 

 a set of volume tables for sugar maple 

 in the northern part of the State. These 

 tables are the result of many years' work 

 and much data collected by the students 

 at the forestry summer school which has 

 been held in various places in northern 

 Michigan. Volume tables on basswood, 

 beech, elm and hemlock are in course of 

 preparation as also growth tables for sec- 

 ond growth sugar maple. 



A fire caused by a locomotive burned 

 over about ten acres in one of the College 

 woodlots this fall. It necessitated trench- 

 ing to confine it. The woods were very 

 dry this year. During these dry weeks 

 the College maintained a day and night 

 patrol of the woods in the forest nursery. 

 The College forest in Iosoo and Alcona 

 counties containing fifty thousand acres of 

 Jack pine plains escaped fire. This land 

 adjoins the Michigan National Forests and 

 it contains scattered stands of Jack pine 

 and oak. 



The Forestry Club held its annual camp- 

 fire on November 3 ; about sixty students 

 being present. The Forestry Club is one of 

 the strongest technical clubs at the College. 



NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE OF 

 FORESTRY 



TVOTABLE forestry demonstration pro- 

 jects for 1921 under the supervision of 

 the New York State College of Forestry 

 at Syracuse are already under way, and 

 more demonstrations are being added each 

 month as part of the 1921 program. The 

 policy of the college of educating the State 

 through practical demonstration plantings 

 will be continued next year on an even 

 larger scale than last spring, when nine- 

 teen demonstration plantings were made in 

 nine counties, with a total planting of 

 300,000 trees. Among the important tasks 

 already being laid out are the following: 



The reforestation of the city water reser- 

 voir region at Yonkers. 



The preservation of the watershed at 

 Peekskill, from which the city derives its 

 water supply. 



Planting of probably 50,000 tre|es at 

 least, for the Broome County Sportsmen's 

 club, which plans to establish a great for- 

 est system in the southern New York hills. 



The extension of the Dozen Dads Forest 

 at Cooperstown into other parts of Otsego 

 County. 



ENGLAND NEEDS FOREST SCHOOL 



A NOTABLE authority on empire for- 

 estry and a delegate to the British 

 Empire Forestry Conference, Mr. H. Mac- 

 Kay, has recently left England on his re- 

 turn journey to Australia which country 

 he represented with Mr. Lane Poole, says 

 the Christian Science Monitor. Mr. Mac- 

 Kay has served on many Parliamentary 

 Committees and Royal Commissions, and 

 was associated with the Australian delega- 

 tion at Ottawa in 1894, the first conference 

 on preferential trade between Great Britain, 

 Canada and Australia. He prepared all 

 reports, and framed all forestry legislation 

 for the Victorian Parliament from 1907 to 

 1919 in which year he was appointed com- 

 missioner of forests for Victoria. 



In expressing his views upon education 

 in forestry Mr. MacKay said that at pres- 

 ent there is no great forest school worthy 

 of the name in the empire, such as those 

 established for the training of foresters 

 at Nancy in France and at Munich, Tha- 

 randt and Eberswalde in Germany. 



There is indeed a useful school for in- 

 termediate training at Detira Dure in 

 northern India, and also schools for the 

 lower grades of the forest service in Aus- 

 tralia, South Africa and Canada, but hith- 

 erto no school has been founded fit to i- 

 part a thorough practical and theoretical 

 training to students to fit them for the high- 

 er executive posts in any part of the em- 

 pire. The training now given at Oxford. 

 Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities to 

 candidates for the Indian forest service is 

 adapted to the needs of that empire alone, 

 and in any case students in the past have 

 had to get an insight into practical work 

 in the forests of France and Germany. 



It is high time that this reproach should 

 be removed, and the recent conference, in 

 deciding to urge that a forestry training 

 institution, well equipped from the begin- 

 ning and properly staffed with a corps of 

 competent teachers should be established 

 without delay in England, believe that the 

 project will command whole-hearted sup 

 port throughout the empire. In any case 

 such an institution is essential to meet the 

 needs of forestry in the United Kingdom 

 and British India, but most of the self . 

 governing colonies are sadly in need r 

 properly trained young men to take up 

 executive work in their forests, and this 

 central training school if properly organ- 

 ized will enable them to send to Eng- 

 land for training the brightest and most 

 promising pupils from their own elementary 

 schools. 



