1899. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



41 



Educational. 



The New York State College of For- 

 estry has a 30,000-acre demonstration 

 area of Adirondack forest. The terms of 

 sale are agreed on, and only a survey de- 

 lays the formal turning over of the prop- 

 erty. It contains some virgin forest, some 

 from which the lumbermen have taken 

 the choice timber, and some from which 

 forest fires have taken all the timber. 

 The college can, therefore, on the start, 

 demonstrate all sides of forestry, from 

 planting bare tracts to lumbering and 

 getting the logs to market. 



Of this institution, Schweizerische Zcit- 

 schrift furJForstwesen, published at Bern, 

 Switzerland, says: 



We must grant that the Americans not only 

 are in earnest in their efforts to further their 

 forestry, but are able to choose with keen vision 

 and true comprehension t'ie proper means for 

 attaining the desired ends by the shortest road. 



The Indian Forester, published at Mus- 

 soorie, India, in reviewing the prospectus 

 of the College of Forestry, makes the 

 following comments: 



We may confess at once that after reading 

 through the proposals for the latter, which may 

 be termed "stiff all through," and the names 

 of the President and thirty-two professors and 

 instructors who will be engaged in the scholastic 

 work, we reflected with no small amount of 

 relief that our school and college days aie 

 over. In the college courses of instruction, we 

 should b3 inclined to say that too many sub- 

 jects in too many parts are proposed to be 

 taught, when for instance we read that eight 

 different courses of geology are proposed. In 

 all, if we read aright, as at English universi- 

 ties, there are about fifteen hours fundamental 

 and four hours supplementary or elective work 

 per week; and that excursions and laboratory 

 work only count one hour for every two and a 

 half or three actually spent. Botany is taught 

 in the first three years, forestry in the last two 

 onV; thus students who only take the three- 

 years' course lose a large part of the latter. 

 We note that an average of two hours per week 

 is to be spent during each of the last seven 

 terms on political economy; while the subject 

 of pisciculture and venery is also taught. A 

 thesis will be required from every student in 

 his fourth year, and it is noted that there is an 

 ample field for graduate and research work 

 which will be encouraged. We see no mention 

 of the teaching of accounts. A knowledge of 

 these is certainly required in the work of a 

 forest officer. In geology we note that one 



week's practical work is to be done in the field ; 

 in addition we would say, regarding this and 

 the origin and nature of soils, the geology of 

 soils, the way in which they take their origin 

 from certain formations of rock, and the kind 

 of soil formed from the latter is, for a forest 

 officer, far more important than knowing the 

 names of fossils ; similarly with the knowledge 

 of how to read a geological map and the 

 way in which strata lie. As regards forest 

 protection, an account of fire conservancy as it 

 will be taught and practiced, will be of interest- 

 to forest officers of this country. We wish the 

 New York State College of Forestry every suc- 

 cess, both in its teaching and its results, large 

 and small. 



The board of directors of the Cali- 

 fornia State Board of Trade discussed, at 

 a recent meeting, the preservation of the 

 forests of the West. A committee was 

 appointed, consisting of John P. Irish, 

 Craigle Sharp and W. H. Mills, to con- 

 fer with the board of regents of the Uni- 

 versity of California at the meeting of the 

 latter on the 21st inst. The committee 

 was instructed to urge the faculties of the 

 universities of Berkeley and Stanford to 

 create a chair of forestry in their re- 

 spective institutions. 



The annual report of State Engineer 

 John E. Field, of Colorado, contains 

 some valuable suggestions with regard 

 to forest fires. It says in part : 



Forest fires during the last year have been 

 more than ever destructive and numerous, and 

 I would urge that some law be passed to pre- 

 vent, if possible, these conflagrations, even to 

 the extent of prohibiting hunters and campers 

 from invading the timber reserve or thickly 

 wooded portions of our mountains when there 

 has been a long spell of dry weather. I would 

 then urge that some effective measure be 

 adopted for fighting the fires when first dis- 

 covered. The entire irrigation section is de- 

 pendent on the preservation of our forests, which 

 I believe can never be replaced no matter what 

 the necessity and regardless of expense, for with 

 the forests the soil alike disappears, is washed 

 off by rains and rapidly melting snows, and we 

 have in prospect bare rocky ranges without 

 trees or soil. I would recommend, instead of 

 building reservoirs to hold our Hood waters, 

 that the forests, those great natural reservoirs, 

 be preserved to the end that our floods be not 

 increased, and as a consequence, our summer 

 flow decreased. 



