1130 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



complished by it has thoroughly aroused 

 the community to the needs of such a 

 body. 



The first thing that was undertaken was 

 the reforesting of bare and unsightly spots 

 on the Reading Mountains by planting 

 3,000 seedling pines. A paid forest fire 

 patrol of fourteen men was placed on 

 duty, as well as a mounted patrol of six 

 men composed of two details of State 

 police. Fire wardens were appointed by 

 the State Commissioner of Forestry. Two 

 model forestry stations were established 

 at two orphans' homes in the county, where 

 the trees were planted and cared for by 

 the orphans under the supervision of Mr. 

 Parkes. Seven thousand seedling pines 

 were planted by 125 members of the 1916 

 class of the Boys' High School, on Mt. 

 Penn, Reading, and the following day Mr. 

 Parkes took 431 pupils of the Girls' High 

 School out on the Antietam watershed, 

 where they planted 8,000 seedlings. 



Several boroughs were also interested 

 in planting trees on their watersheds, this 

 planting being done by school children. 

 One idea that Mr. Parkes is proving is that 

 school children as well as individual wood- 

 lot owners should be interested in reforest- 

 ing. The city of Reading, at the sugges- 

 tion of Mr. Parkes, was induced to start 

 a municipal nursery. Fifteen thousand 

 seedlings are growing nicely. Over 50,000 

 seedlings have been planted in the county 

 so far. 



New York's Steel Look-out Tower 



According to the report of District For- 

 est Ranger Todd made to the Conserva- 

 tion Commission at Albany, an all steel 

 mountain observation station in the forest 

 fire service has just been completed. The 

 tower is on Balsam Lake mountain in 

 Ulster county, is forty feet high, and was 

 constructed at a cost of $135. Twenty-five 

 dollars of this amount was donated by 

 George J. Gould of New York City, who 

 owns considerable forest land within the 

 range of the station. The erection was 

 done almost entirely by the forest rangers. 

 The value of steel towers on mountain 

 stations has long been appreciated by the 

 commission and as soon as the necessary 

 money is available, steel towers will be 

 substituted for the unsteady ilooden struc- 

 tures now in use. 



The reserved timber is on the public 

 lands north of the Chugach National For- 

 est. The purpose of the reservation is to 

 prevent the timber needed for the con- 

 struction of the Government railroad and 

 its branches in Alaska from falling into 

 the possession of individuals or corpora- 

 tions, in which event it would be neces- 

 sary for the Government to purchase tim- 

 ber which it once owned. It is not the 

 intention of the Government, however, to 

 make any unnecessary restrictions which 

 will tend to retard the development of 

 the territory of Alaska along the line of 

 the railroad or its branches, and in the 

 withdrawal order the interests of the pub- 

 lic have been conserved. Only the timber 

 on the land, not the land itself, has been 

 reserved. 



Alaska Forests Reserved 



Upon the recommendation of the Sec- 

 retary of the Interior and of the chairman 

 of the Alaskan Engineering Commission, 

 the President, in accordance with the 

 Alaskan railway act, has signed an order 

 establishing an extensive timber reserve, 

 approximately 200 miles in length and 

 from 5 to 10 miles in width, in that ter- 

 ritory, to be known as "Alaskan timber 

 reserve No. 1." 



Report ou Street Trees of New York City 



Prof. Laurie D. Cox, Landscape Engi- 

 neer of the College of Forestry at Syra- 

 cuse, has just completed a report made as 

 a result of three months study of street 

 tree conditions in New York City. This 

 study was made upon invitation of Hon. 

 Cabot Ward of the Park Department of 

 New York City and was carried out with 

 the funds given by John D. Rockefeller, 

 Jr. New York City has made no syste- 

 matic effort to plant its streets with trees 

 and the report of Professor Cox will out- 

 line a practical system of street tree plant- 

 ing, based not only upon the studies of 

 the past summer but upon careful inves- 

 tigation of street tree work in such cities 

 as Buffalo, Rochester, Newark, New Haven 

 and Boston. 



Forests and Farmers 



The national forests, says an article in 

 the Year Book of the Department of Agri- 

 culture, just issued, besides being the 

 American farmer's most valuable source of 

 wood which is the chief building material 

 for rural purposes, are also his most valu- 

 able source of water, both for irrigation and 

 domestic use. In the West, they afford 

 him a protected grazing range for his 

 stock; they are the best insurance against 

 flood damage to his fields, his buildings, his 

 bridges, his roads, and the fertility of his 

 soil. The national forests cover the higher 

 portions of the Rocky Mountain ranges, 

 the Cascades, the Facile Coast ranges, and 

 a large part of the forested coast and 

 islands of Alaska; some of the hilly re- 

 gions in Montana and in the Dakotas, 

 Oklahoma, and Arkansas, and limited areas 

 in Minnesota, Michigan, Florida and Porto 

 Rico. In addition, land is now being pur- 

 chased for national forests in the White 

 Mountains of New England and in the 

 southern Appalachians. In regions so 

 widely scattered, agricultural and forest 

 conditions must necessarily differ to a great 

 degree, bringing about corresponding dif- 

 ferences in the effect of the national for- 

 ests on the agricultural interests of the 

 various localities. Wherever agriculture 

 can be practiced, however, the farmer is 

 directly benefited by the existence of na- 

 tional forests and by their proper man- 

 agement. 



Pitch Moth Damages Douglas Fir 



Nine-tenths of the defects in Douglas 

 fir timber, which are locally known as pitch 

 seams, gum check, windshake, etc., are due 

 to the work of the Douglas fir pitch moth, 

 according to a recent investigation con- 

 ducted by entomologists of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture. This 

 moth, it is estimated, causes a loss in the 

 total output of Douglas fir of from 7^ to 

 15 per cent, and in one mill, where the loss 

 was lower than the average it amounted in 

 money to $18,900 for that season's cut 

 alone. This money, says Bulletin No. 255, 

 which the department has just published 

 on this subject, would be sufficient to keep 

 the area on which the timber was cut clean 

 from the moth for a period of 15 years. 



The only way in which an infestation 

 of the pitch moth can be reduced is to 

 destroy the larvae, the presence of which is 

 always made known by the protruding 

 pitch tube. When this tube is located, it 

 should be separated from the tree and the 

 larvae thus exposed killed. The wound 

 may then be smoothed with a knife or 

 small ax, and painted with creosote to 

 prevent reinfestation by insects or fungi. 



Wood Pulp in Argentina 



As the result of experiments carried out 

 by a Swedish paper expert, it has been 

 ascertained tht Argentina produces a tree 

 in abundance which provides excellent raw 

 material, better even in quality than that 

 usually employed in making paper pulp 

 in both Europe and the United States. 

 This tree is the Araucaria imbricata, a pic- 

 ture of which may be seen in American 

 Forestry for August, page 850. 



With a view to confirming independently 

 the report of the Swedish expert, the Min- 

 ister of Agriculture commissioned two 

 Government engineers to investigate and 

 report upon the properties of the Arau- 

 caria imbricata. These gentlemen recently 

 presented their report, from which it ap- 

 pears that in the Territory of Neuquen 

 this tree is found over an area of more 

 than 1,000,000 hectares (2,470,000 acres). 

 Three and one-half average trees suffice to 

 produce one ton of pulp. Where news 

 print paper is concerned, two and one-half 

 trees will provide one ton of pulp. 



Philippine Lumber for China 

 The Director of the Philippine Bureau 

 of Forestry, who has recently returned 

 from a trip to China in the interests of 

 Philippine lumber, reports that there is a 

 market in China for all the lumber pro- 

 duced in the islands if the proper connec- 



