"*34 



THE FORESTER. 



June, 



light in destroying it. After lighting their 

 pipes, they drop the burning matches into 

 the grass. They camp along the trails 

 and roads and leave their fires unextin- 

 guished. They have been known to start 

 fires just for the wanton satisfaction of 

 seeing them burn. 



Sometimes the settler in the remote 

 woods is quite as much of a nuisance. 

 Often they are people who like no re- 

 straint and who have come to the woods 

 to avoid living under the immediate re- 

 straint of the law. They range about, 

 hunting, fishing, stealing timber, build- 

 ing fires for their lunches and camps 

 against trees or in black muck or rotten 

 trunks that hold the fire. Usually the 

 first summer they burn over a lot of the 

 adjoining land to allow grass to spring 

 up and make pasture for their cattle, re- 

 gardless of the timber they kill or the 

 extent of country over which the fire 

 spreads. When very dry, so a thorough 

 *' burn" can be made, they put fire in the 

 slashings they have been making during 

 the year and simply let it go. 



If a lumberman could acquire timber 



in a compact body a township or more 

 he could do something to protect himself. 

 He could clear strips of land around the 

 borders, cultivate vegetables, hay or 

 grain, and thus have a good fire-break. 

 He could demand an explanation for the 

 presence of any one found upon the land. 



With timber and stump land thus pro- 

 tected against fire, he could establish a 

 permanent business, put in a substantial 

 mill, build up a town, and, by cutting 

 the land in rotation, he could keep the 

 woods green and productive instead of 

 desolating them as he does now. 



The lumberman is ashamed of the re- 

 sult of the present custom, but it is not 

 in his power to improve the present state 

 of affairs. The manner in which a large 

 part of the public domain has been dis- 

 posed of makes forest preservation seem 

 impossible. A more thorough system 

 could hardly be devised, in my opinion, 

 for the introduction of fire-brands into 

 the forest than the application of the 

 Homestead law and the land grants of 

 alternate sections to pine-timber lands. 



Horace B. Ayres. 



II. CONSERVATION. 



The subject of Forestry was made the 

 leading topic of discussion at the annual 

 meeting of the Paper and Pulp Asso- 

 ciation in New York in March, 1898. 

 As a result, the mill owners were brought 

 to realize that they were pursuing a very 

 short-sighted policy in stripping their 

 woodlands. Their attention was called 

 to the fact that the Spruce of the East- 

 ern States was rapidly disappearing, 

 and that while only a small part of the 

 capital of a paper mill was invested in 

 woodlands, the enormously valuable 

 water powers and plants would be use- 

 less without the raw material. 



From this meeting dated the first ac- 

 tion on the part of the paper mills of 

 this country looking toward the adop- 

 tion of scientific management for their 

 timber lands. 



When the various mills were com- 

 bined in the International Paper Com- 

 pany, Mr. A. N. Burbank was placed at 



the head of the woodlands department. 

 He instructed the writer of this article 

 (as forester for the company) to exam- 

 ine, first of all, the woodlands of New 

 Hampshire, to report on the stand of 

 Spruce, rate of growth, and the best 

 method of lumbering to insure a supply 

 of wood for the future. Some 100,000 

 acres owned by the company, in the 

 vicinity of the White Mountains, were 

 first explored. 



The stand of Spruce was determined 

 by valuation and surveys, the strip 

 method being used, and all trees down 

 to 5 inches callipered. Then the rate of 

 growth was determined and a prelimi- 

 nary working plan made for the whole 

 tract. 



This limited the cutting of Spruce to 

 12 inches, "breast high," or 14 inches 

 on the stump, which was found to be 

 the same thing and much easier for the 

 choppers to understand. The writer 



