1068 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



of game. Elk from the Yellowstone Park have already 

 been placed on the big reserve in Roscommon County. 



The completion of the work of land classification, ex- 

 change and consolidation is the most important work 

 ahead of the Commission, and must precede any great 

 extension of the work of developing the individual 

 forests. 



The report contains two sub-reports, one by C. M. 

 Granger and one by J. G. Peters, both of the U. S. Forest 

 Service, offering certain suggestions for the future im- 

 provement of the State work. These reports call atten- 

 tion to certain weak points in the present organization. 

 The work of the State Forester, who in other States is 

 entrusted with large educational and administrative 

 duties of state-wide application, has in Michigan been 

 strictly limited to the development of the State Forest 

 Reserves and their protection. Fire protection in the 

 State has been thus divided between the State Forester 

 on State lands, and the State Forest Commissioner, who 

 is also the Game and Fish Commissioner. 



The consolidation of the fire protection service under 

 the Commission, secured in 1915, is a step in the right 

 direction, and can be made to work out well provided 

 the Commission clearly recognizes the two fundamental 

 principles of organization upon which efficiency in other 

 States has depended. The first of these is an indepen- 

 dent set of fire wardens, who are not saddled with the 

 responsibilities and drawbacks attached to the enforce- 

 ment of game and fish laws. The temptation to obliterate 

 the distinction between game and fire wardens in order 

 to make a better showing and use each State warden 

 more effectively should not blind the Commission to the 

 fact that the fire problem requires special treatment to 

 be solved at all, and that a proper public attitude is the 

 keynote to the enforcement of the fire laws. The time 

 is not ripe for such "economies," and the effect will surely 

 be to reduce efficiency or nullify the efforts of the State 

 fire wardens. 



The second principle is the placing of forest fire pro- 

 tection in the hands of a trained forester or woodsman, 

 whose chief interest lies in the field of forestry, and not 

 of fish and game protection. The most successful form 

 of organization, and that which is found in nearly every 

 State which maintains a forest fire department, is a sepa- 

 rate force of State or local fire wardens not connected 

 with fish and game administration, and under the direc- 

 tion of a State forester or fire warden whose time is 

 either entirely devoted to forest fires or whose other in- 

 terests and energies are exerted along forestry lines 

 rather than those of fish and game protection. Fire pro- 

 tection is essential to forestry, and while it affects fish 

 and game indirectly, it is not the primary consideration 

 in this field. The Conservation Commission of New 

 York, under which these two departments are consoli- 

 dated, has never made the mistake of destroying the 

 identity of its fire warden force, but has from the first 

 maintained separate wardens for these two distinct fields 

 of operation. Nor has this State entrusted its fire laws 

 to the administration of the game warden, but has always 

 maintained a separate administrative head for the fire 

 protection work, who has for years been a trained for- 

 ester. This plan is earnestly urged for consideration in 

 Michigan, under the new consolidation of these depart- 

 ments. 



[Note. The States which maintain separate adminis- 

 trative heads for forest fire protection and separate or- 

 ganizations of forest fire wardens, not connected with 

 fish and game administration, are Maine, New Hamp- 

 shire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecti- 

 cut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, 

 North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas. 

 Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, 

 Oregon and California. 



The remaining States, with three exceptions, are 

 largely agricultural or have not established State organi- 

 zations for fire protection.] 



Editorial 



STATE FORESTRY ASSOCIATIONS 



STATE forestry in this country, after twenty years 

 of development, is yet in its struggling infancy. 

 In some few states, commendable progress has 

 been made in developing state organizations for fire pro- 

 tection, and in educating the public to a new and sane 

 attitude towards forest fires. In a still smaller number 

 of states the question of state forest reservations has 

 been aggressively agitated, with far-reaching results. 

 But taken as a whole, the forestry movement in the 

 individual states is struggling with tremendous obstacles, 

 due to many causes. A clearly defined state policy for 

 administration of lands worthless for agriculture and 

 their restoration to productiveness through forestry con- 

 fronts the inherited weaknesses of our individualistic 

 form of government. 



Indifference to public or commercial welfare, the 

 gauging of results solely by immediate private profits, 

 the horrible ineflSciency of the corrupt partizan or spoils 

 system of public service, which, should it be exposed to 

 such urgent stress as that of England or France in the 

 present war, would either crumble or give place to effi- 

 ciency, all constitute obstacles which threaten not only to 

 seriously interfere with, but to almost completely pre- 

 vent, the final establishment of state forestry on a sound, 

 permanent basis. 



The success of state forestry means nothing short of 

 a complete transformation in the general attitude of 

 entire state communities towards the economic treatment 

 of forest land. Such constructive work requires long- 

 continued, patient and intelligent effort on the part of 



