1504 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



School of Forestry 



UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO 



Four Year Course, with op- 

 portunity to specialize in 

 General Forestry, Log- 

 ging Engineering, and 

 Forest Grazing. 



Forest Ranger Course of 

 high school grade, cover- 

 ing three years of five 

 months each. 



Special Short Course cover- 

 ing twelve weeks design- 

 ed for those who cannot 

 take the time for the 

 fuller courses. 



Correspondence Course in 

 Lumber and Its Uses. No 

 tuition, and otherwise ex- 

 penses are the lowest. 



For Further Particulars Address 



Dean, School of Forestry 



University of Idaho 



Moscow, Idaho 



SARGENT'S HANDBOOK OF 

 AMERICAN PRIVATE SCHOOLS 



A Guide Book for ParentM 



A Standard Annual of Reference. Describes 

 critically and discriminately the Private 

 Schools of all classifications. 

 Comparative Tables give the relative cost, 

 size, age, special features, etc. 

 Introductory Chapters review interesting de 

 velopments of the year in education — Modern 

 Schools, War Changes in the Schools, Educa- 

 tional Reconstruction, What the Schools Are 

 Doing, Recent Educational Literature, etc. 

 Our Educational Service Bureau will be glad 

 to advise and write you intimately about any 

 school or class of schools. 



Fifth edition, 1 919, revised and enlarged, 

 786 pages, $3.00. Circulars and sample pages. 



PORTER E. SARGENT, 14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 



A GOOD 

 PROTECTION 



FORiRATN* 



REFORESTATION OF PORTO RICO 

 IS PLANNED 



THE reforestation of Porto Rico along 

 scientific lines is about to be under- 

 taken. Robert Murray Ross, an expert in 

 forest planting, recently arrived at the ex- 

 perimental station in Rio Piedras, fully 

 equipped to undertake the big problem, but 

 had barely entered upon his duties when 

 he was offered a position in Santo Do- 

 mingo paying him a very much larger salary 

 and so resigned to accept the Santo Do- 

 mingo position. E. Murray Bruner, Super- 

 visor of the U. S. Forestry Service in this 

 island and Chief of the Porto Rico Fores- 

 try Service, in writing of the practical plans 

 to be inaugurated, says : 



"This is a work of immeasurable magni- 

 tude in its importance and possibilities. The 

 field is unlimited, while the need is im- 

 mediate and urgent. 



"There is no country in the Western 

 Hemisphere in more acute need of ex- 

 tensive reforestation than Porto Rico. The 

 inhabitants of no other part of America 

 suffer so much from the deprivation of es- 

 sentially needed fuel wood, native lumber 

 and related forest products. Nowhere else 

 is the per capita consumption of wood so 

 small as in Porto Rico. Nowhere else has 

 deforestation, due to destructive methods of 

 exploitation become so nearly complete. 

 Originally as completely covered with as 

 rich a forest as could be found in this part 

 of the world Porto Rico today presents 

 the sad spectacle of a country literally 

 stripped of its forest wealth and entirely 

 dependent upon importation of all classes 

 of lumber and construction timber while 

 more than 50 per cent of the total land 

 area lies completely idle except as it sup 

 ports a practically worthless growth of 

 coarse grasses and brush. 



"The cost of substantial and comfortable 

 homes built of wood has become so ex- 

 orbitantly high as to be out of reach of 

 even the moderately well to do, while the 

 poor can aspire to no home superior to a 

 miserable shack built of scraps of wood and 

 other cast away materials. Rents are ex- 

 cessively high. Fuel wood is so scarce and 

 costly that the poor must depend upon such 

 fagots and twigs as the women and chil- 

 dren are able to gather up in their tiresome 

 and incessant searches, even the heavier 

 and harder portions of the palm branches 

 being eagerly sought. Poles, posts and 

 fencing materials can hardly be had at all. 

 Even the small sized cross ties required by 

 the new narrow gauge railroads must be 

 imported from Santo Domingo, the scrubby 

 and generally despised mesquite under the 

 dignified name of "bayahonda" furnishing 

 the bulk of these ties which cost the con- 

 sumer about one dollar per tie. Sawmills 

 for the manufacture of native lumber are 

 unknown. Lumbering as an industry has 

 disappeared. 



"And in the face of all this we are con- 

 fronted with the absolute fact that the sup- 



ply of southern yellow pine upon which 

 we are so nearly completely dependent for 

 all ordinary construction, will be exhausted, 

 in so far as the general market is concerned, 

 within 14 years, and that within five years 

 the remaining original supply will be in 

 the hands of so few mill operators that 

 effective competition in prices will have 

 disappeared. 



"The time is at hand when the people of 

 Porto Rico must arouse themselves to this 

 deplorable economic and social condition, 

 for it vitally affects every home, every in- 

 dividual in the Island. Earnest energetic 

 and concerted attention must be directed at 

 once to the solution of the forestry prob- 

 lem. And the only solution must come 

 through the intensive practice of reforesta- 

 tion on a large scale, the planting of fuel- 

 wood, and lumber producing trees on thou- 

 sands and hundreds of thousands of acres 

 of idle lands from which the once poten- 

 tially rich forests have been so destruc- 

 tively removed. 



CARRIER PIGEONS AID FORESTERS 



TOURING the recent severe forest fires in 

 certain sections of the West, carrier 

 pigeons were successfully employed to con- 

 vey messages from the fire fighters "at the 

 front" to headquarters. The test of the 

 birds for this use was on a limited scale 

 but has encouraged the Forest Service of- 

 ficials to believe that they can be employed 

 profitably on a larger scale. 



The experiment lends special interest to 

 a plan which is being considered for co- 

 operation between the Department of Agri- 

 culture and the Navy Department, under 

 which carrier pigeons and equipment of the 

 latter department may become available. 

 To establish a successful carrier pigeon 

 system it will be necessary to lay plans dur- 

 ing the coming winter, to have the posts 

 properly located, and get the birds ac- 

 climated and begin their training. Flights 

 of 600 miles in a single day have been made, 

 while a distance of 140 to 200 miles means 

 a two or three hour flight for the average 

 bird. Since the distances which would be 

 covered in Forest Service work are con- 

 siderably less than this there appears to be 

 no difficulty in this regard. In most in- 

 stances the flights from fire fighting areas 

 to headquarters would be considerably less 

 than 50 miles. The value of the birds 

 would be particularly great in mountainous 

 regions where travel is difficult. 



FOREST FLYER KILLED 



T IEUT. J. WEBB, of Glendel, California, 

 was killed, and Sergt. John C. McGinn, 

 of Salt Lake City, was seriously injured 

 when the airplane Lieutenant Webb was 

 piloting fell in a tail spin and crashed to 

 the earth at Medford. The aviators were 

 on fire patrol duty. 



