400 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



HEW TO THE LINE, AS B. L T SAID, AND 



EVIDENCE of the wide-spread popular- 

 ity of the American Forestry Associa- 

 tion's educational campaigns is seen in 

 the way newspaper paragraphers have tak- 

 en up various phases of the work. The 

 cartoonists, too, see many opportunities in 

 keeping the importance of forestry before 

 the readers. The test of a subject is the 

 way the paragraphers take it up or let it 

 alone. They have taken it up, so, as the 

 late B. L. T., of the Chicago Tribune, said 

 for so many years at the head of his col- 

 umn, "hew to the line, let the chips fall 

 where they may." 



SPEAKING OF OUR WASTEFUL LAND 

 TENANTRY SYSTEM 



Darling, in the Washington Herald. 



Hagerstown Mail: The American For- 

 estry Association is carrying on a popular 

 vote to name a national tree. No man who 

 remembers his boyhood will vote for either 

 the hickory or birch. 



Minneapolis Journal : The American For- 

 estry Association is asking what is the na- 

 tional tree. If Mr. Burbank could cross 

 the oak and the pine, the question might be 

 answered. 



Indianapolis Star: A forestry bill is ex- 

 pected at the next session of congress and 

 by the time all the undesirables get over 

 here we may have an immigration law. 



Nashville Banner : The Associated Press 

 carried a dispatch from Washington to the 

 effect that American forests are so rich 

 with infinite variety that President Wilson 

 was unable to name a choice for a national 

 tree. He wrote to the American Forestry 

 Association, which is compiling a national 



referendum as to what tree best represents 

 America. A correspondent of the Banner 

 came to the President's relief by sug- 

 gesting the cactus tree, which thrives in 

 arid lands. 



Albany {Ala.) Daily: The American 

 Forestry Association, of Washington, has 

 sprung a new idea in elections upon an 

 unsuspecting public. Some half a dozen 

 well-known trees are candidates before the 

 American people for position as our Na- 

 tional Tree. The campaign is distinctive 

 in American campaigns, but one of the 

 chief features is the fact that the "candi- 

 dates" are dumb. They cannot inflict cam- 

 paign oratory on the public. There is a 

 great deal of consolation in that I 



Detroit Free Press: The search for a 

 national tree which is now being carried on 

 by the American Forestry Association will 

 remind old-timers that the Democrats used 

 to accord that distinction to the hickory 

 whenever they won an election. 



Montgomery Advertiser : To forestall 

 our gloomy uplifters who may be commit- 

 ted to the weeping willow, we suggest the 

 magnolia ever green and as enduring as 

 the rock of ages. 



Cincinnati Enquirer: Without deprecat- 

 ing the claims of the cited authority's 

 choice, or the claims of any other of the nu- 

 merous candidates for this high national 

 honor, it is here suggested that not one of 

 them has a chance, not the barest look in. It 

 national tree long has been selected. It 

 never can be displaced by any other tree in 

 this democracy not so long as Congresses 

 and Legislatures, political parties and poli- 

 ticians exist to water its roots, encourage 

 its growth and to preserve its existence to 

 the end that it may bear abundant fruit. 

 Yea, the persimmon tree is the national 

 tree ; and the longest pole still is essential 

 to securing of its choicest fruitage. 



Billings (Mont.) Gazette: Down south 

 the persimmon is running strong as the 

 national tree in the plebiscite being taken by 

 the American Forestry Association. That's 

 because of the popularity of the persimmon 

 tree in the south, and it may be that it 

 grows over a wide enough area of this 

 country to swing sufficient votes. Up in 

 this country, and particularly around Bill- 

 ings, we're handicapped in the election. We 

 might put forth as our candidate the cotton- 

 wood tree, but with little chance that it 

 would be named. Around shedding time, 

 we doubt if it would even swing a majority 

 of votes in its home precincts. 



Everybody has been asked to vote a 

 choice for the national tree schools, or- 



ganizations of all kinds, civic bodies and in- 

 dividuals. The press is variously express- 

 ing its selection. Strong candidates are 

 oak, walnut, elm, maple, white pine, cedar, 

 sycamore, Douglas fir. 



The plebiscite is a good thing. Anything 

 is a good thing that arouses an interest in 

 trees. No city can have too many of them, 

 nor a variety too wide. Billings is well 

 shaded, but, as the city grows its tree- 

 population should grow with it. Trees 

 planted now as spindling saplings, requiring 

 the watchful care of new infants, some day 

 will become the verdant growths that beau- 

 tify the thoroughfares and bring refresh- 

 ing rest to those that pass or pause be- 

 neath them. 



The Boston Transcript took up the sub- 

 ject of maple sugar and would lead the 

 world to believe that only in New England 

 can the blown-in the-bottle, honest-to-good- 

 ness maple sugar be produced. To quote 

 the Boston Transcript : New England people 

 have great respect for the American For- 

 estry Association, which is doing an ex- 

 cellent work all around ; but they will 

 nevertheless take the association's latest 

 piece of "publicity" with several grains of 

 the salt of incredulity. The Forestry As- 

 sociation has been instructing the country 

 on the subject of making maple sugar. It 

 seems to imagine that a national view can 

 be taken of this subject, which is not the 

 case true maple sugar being distinctly a 

 New England and a Canadian industry. It 

 is true, as the American Forestry bulletin 

 states, that the sugar maple grows else- 

 where than in New England and Canada. 

 It is also true that the sap of the Acer 

 Sacchaiinum is sweet, or in some degree 



BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE 



Orr, in the Chicago Tribune. 



