NEW HAMPSHIRE CONFERENCE 



617 



is only natural, as their minds run more to timber than 

 do the British, a result of the greater per capita wood 

 consumption of Germany than of Great Britain in peace 

 times. It is to me one of the most striking differences 

 between their trenches and dug-outs and ours. It is 

 interesting to notice the bird and animal life to be seen 

 almost everywhere along the battle front. They seem in 

 no way put out by the firing and very seldom do you see 

 any killed. I remember only two cases, one a hare killed 

 by a small piece of a shell, and the second a swallow 

 whose head was taken off by a shrapnel bullet. A large 

 number of his feathers went to Canada in letters from our 

 gunners, mostly to ladies, and with suitably pathetic com- 

 ments. The battery officers have to censor the out- 

 going mail. 



This letter is being written under some difficulties, as 

 there is a steady bombardment going on and the acetylene 

 lamp goes out about once a minute from the concussion. 

 What beats me is why it stays alight so long. I suppose 

 there must be a gun firing straight over this dug-out at the 

 rate of one per minute. 



Back in the spring I noticed a bird jump every time a 

 gun went off or a shell burst and I wondered at him. 

 Through my telescope, however, I saw that he was a 

 migrant and the first of his kind I had seen this year. 

 I wonder what he thought about it? 



I am informed that the wild pigs in the firing area 

 could not stand the noise at any price and have appeared 

 as much as sixty miles away in woods where they were 

 quite unknown before. 



I am inclined to think that the area under forest in the 

 war zones will be increased after the war, as there is so 

 much destruction being wrought that the owners, if liv- 

 ing, will not have the heart or means to reclaim the land 

 for farming, and the armies have used so much wood that 

 timberlands will look like a good investment to others. 



NEW HAMPSHIRE CONFERENCE 



THE Forestry Conference under the auspices of 

 the Society for Protection of New Hampshire 

 Forests was held this year at the Crawford House, 

 Crawford Notch, New Hampshire, in the midst of the 

 National Forest purchase area, and adjoining the state 

 forest of 6000 acres which protects the slopes of the 

 Notch. The meeting was largely attended. William L. 

 Hall, of the Forest Service, explained the policy to 

 be pursued in managing the lands acquired by the gov- 

 ernment, which now total over 300,000 acres in New 

 Hampshire alone. The forests on these areas are to be 

 utilized to produce revenue, part of which, under general 

 statute, is paid to the counties in lieu of taxes. Every 

 precaution is taken to preserve the scenic beauty of the 

 forests and to avoid fire risks. 



Mr. W. R. Brown, member of the New Hampshire 

 Forestry Commission and a director of the American For- 

 estry Association, presented, in a carefully prepared 

 paper, a plan for mutual fire insurance of standing tim- 



ber. Printed copies of this paper can be obtained from 

 him at Berlin, New Hampshire. 



Dr. B. E. Fernow, Dean of the College of Forestry . 

 at Toronto, in a talk on forestry of the past and future, 

 advocated the extension of public holdings of absolute 

 forest land as the most effective method of securing 

 forest production. In a discussion following, as to the 

 merits of attempting to regulate the cutting of timber 

 on private lands, he brought out the fact that Prussia, 

 the most autocratic of all German states, preferred to 

 buy poor sandy soils and manage them as state forests 

 rather than attempt to force the owners to practise for- 

 estry against their will. 



The woodlot was discussed by Professor F. Roth, 

 Director of the Michigan Forest School at Ann Arbor, 

 who told about methods of estimating its standing tim- 

 ber, and by Professor J. W. Tourney, Director of the 

 Yale Forest School, who advocated commercial planting 

 for the establishment of woodlots and cited a, tract of 

 three acres planted to white pine in 1891 near Keene, 

 New Hampshire, on land too steep to cultivate, which 

 sold last year for $1000, or $333 per acre. A lantern- 

 slide lecture was given by Mr. Shurtliff, landscape archi- 

 tect, under whose direction vistas and other cuttings 

 have recently been made to permit tourists to obtain 

 views of the mountains from the road traversing the 

 Crawford Notch. 



An important conference was held at this meeting by 

 the Interstate Committee on the White Pine Blister Rust. 

 Progress reports by government agents and state for- 

 esters who have been operating under the recent federal 

 appropriation of $30,000, showed that this summer the 

 disease has spread upon currant bushes over wide areas 

 in every New England state, and is present in Minne- 

 sota and Wisconsin. Testimony was presented showing 

 that the spores may be borne distances of from two to 

 twenty miles on the wind, producing infections of the 

 currant leaves which, in the fall, will infect white pines 

 in turn. Legislation was recommended which will give 

 to the state officials the necessary power to combat the 

 disease. It was decided, as a result of the conference, 

 that a united and determined effort be made by every 

 state to get control of this rust before it is too late. Speci- 

 mens were shown of the disease in young white pines, 

 and evidence given of plantations now twenty feet high, 

 in which the rust had infected every tree and was killing 

 the entire grove by girdling the trees. 



Many persons are mistaking a browning of the needles 

 of the white pine for the presence of blister rust. This 

 effect has nothing to do with the rust, which is wholly 

 a bark and wood disease. The browning of needles is 

 caused by climatic factors not wholly understood, and 

 most trees recover. 



THE stand of timber on the two great National Forests 

 in Alaska is estimated by the Forest Service as 

 over 70 billion board feet, while the annual growth 

 will, it is said, produce of pulpwood alone enough for 

 the manufacture of three thousand tons of wood pulp a day. 



