AVIATOR TO DETECT FOREST FIRES 



915 



AVIATOR I,. A. \1I.A.S 



With his hydroplane Mr. Vilas is aiding in protecting the forests near 

 Trout I^ake, Wisconsin, from fire. His work in behalf of the State 

 Forestry Department being the first time that a flying machine has 

 been used for forest fire protection. 



reserve lands in Vilas county. He declares that the 

 ascent which he made with Mr. Vilas was 1,600 feet and 

 the 1,200 lakes in the county at that high altitude was 

 one of the finest panoramic views that he has ever seen. 

 The hydroaeroplane is known as "L. A. V., II." This is 

 the second machine that Mr. Vilas has owned. Mr. 

 Vilas is familiarly known in aviation circles as "Jack" 

 Vilas, and about a year ago came into prominence by 

 reason of his flight in a machine across Lake Michigan. 



TEXAS STATE FORESTER 



TEXAS, which recently passed a State forestry 

 law, has selected J. H. Foster, professor of for- 

 estry in the New Hampshire State College and 

 forester of the State's Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 as State forester. 



Mr. Foster is a native of Massachusetts, and is thirty- 

 five years old. He was graduated from Norwich Uni- 

 versity in 1903 and from the Yale Forest School in 1907. 

 After leaving Yale he entered the United States Forest 



Service as a forest assistant, and in 1910 was promoted 

 to assistant chief of State cooperation. His principal 

 assignments were studies of forest conditions in Alar 

 bama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the examination of 

 forest conditions on the watersheds of the Allegheny and 

 Monongahela Rivers, and the taxation of forest lands 

 in New Hampshire. Mr. Foster left the service Septem- 

 ber 1, 1911, to become professor of forestry in the New 

 Hampshire State College and forester of the State's 

 Agricultural Experiment Station. 



The position of State Forester of Texas, which he will 

 assume about September 15, is one of the best positions of 

 this kind ever offered, combining, as it will, all the for- 

 estry work undertaken by the State administrative, 

 teaching, and investigative. The work will be centered at 

 the Agricultural and Mechanical College, at College Sta- 

 tion. There will be a forestry department on equal footing 

 with other principal departments of the college, which 

 will administer the forestry law, including the fire pro- 

 tective system, management of State forests, and cooper- 

 ation with private owners; and the State Forester will 

 supervise the teaching work in forestry under the direc- 

 tion of the School of Agriculture, and the forest investi- 

 gative work under the direction of the Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station. He will have an exceedingly free 

 hand, and will be removed from politics as far as possi- 

 ble. It is expected that the relatively small appropriation 

 of $10,000 will be considerably increased by the next 

 legislature as the result of a constantly increasing interest 

 ill forestry work throughout the State. ^Ir. Foster will 

 bring to the position a broad experience, and the State 

 i:^ certainly to be congratulated on the selection. 



JAPAN'S FOREST LANDS 



THAT the Empire of Japan has a forest preserve 

 more than ten times the area of the New York 

 State Forest Preserve was stated by R. Nakai, 

 a director of the Japanese Forest Service, when he visited 

 the Conservation Commission at Albany recently to 

 inquire into New York State forestry methods. Mr. 

 Nakai is in the United States on behalf of the Japanese 

 Government, and is making a special study of reforesta- 

 tion and fire protection. He visited the New York State 

 nurseries and tree plantations, and made a tour of a large 

 part of the Adirondacks to observe the detailed workings 

 of the State's system of fire prevention. Mr. Nakai ex- 

 pressed much interest in the struggle in the New York 

 State constitutional convention to permit the commer 

 cial utilization of the forest preserve. In Japan, he said, 

 which has a forest area of sixty-seven per cent of the 

 total area of the country, the forests were sharply classi- 

 fied into "utilization forests" and "protection forests." 

 The object of the "protection forests," he explained, is 

 to preserve the safety of the land and further the wel- 

 fare of the people. The protected area is over 18 million 

 acres, against 1,821,014 in New York State. The forest 

 land not owned by the state is subject to the control of 

 the Government, according to the provisions of the 

 Japanese forest law. 



