1900. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



45 



Southern Pacific Railway forestry exhibit 

 it the Paris Exposition. This plank will 

 3e exhibited with two sections of the tree 

 [2 ft. in diameter and 4 



ft. long. 



The purchase of 900,000 acres of tiniber- 

 and from the Northern Pacific Railway 

 Dy the Weyerhauser syndicate has finally 

 )een consummated, says a report from 

 Facoma. There is no question but that 

 he transfer of this large block of timber 



has had the effect of advancing timber- 

 lands and stimulating buying by others. 



The North Carolina Pine Association 

 has voted to accept the invitation to make 

 an exhibit in the Forestry Department of 

 the United States at the Paris Exposition. 

 The exhibition will include hundreds of 

 specimens of dressed and undressed short- 

 leaf Pine lumber, and will be forwarded 

 on a special ship about February ist. 



CURRENT COMMENT. 



The Christmas Tree Custom. 



The serious effect of the annual sweep 

 >f the forests to supply Christmas trees is 

 ittracting more attention this year than 

 :ver before. The article in the January 

 Forester-, in which a lumber contemporary 

 poke of the supply gathered within forty 

 niles of Boston and brought to the " Hub " 

 >y farmers, has called forth the protest of 

 i Massachusetts reader who says the whole 

 ivailable supply within such a radius 

 vould not supply a single ward of the 

 ' city of culture." The optimistic view 

 >f the lumber paper is obviously not the 

 >asis of the work being done by the Massa- 

 :husetts Forestry Association. 



reaches the possibility of being the cause 

 of a famine in lumber? " 



A correspondent writing to Forest and 

 Stream speaks of "carloads after car- 

 Gads of young Spruce, Pine and Hem- 

 ock " which passed by his country home 

 >efore Christmas, en route to New York 

 narkets. Though realizing the pleasure 

 if the children (including his own), in 

 his celebration of the holiday season, the 

 vriter adds : 



"On the other hand, certain lumber 

 las been advanced from $18 to $26 per 

 housand this year, with the promise of 



like advance next year. Is this not a 

 errible destruction of trees? The senti- 

 nent is fine, but can our forests stand this 

 [rain ? Forty years from now these trees 

 vould have been far enough advanced in 

 growth to be of use for building purposes. 

 Vliy not take up this matter before it 



When one has read Mr. Gifford Pin- 

 chot's "Primer of Forestry," describing 

 the "life of the forest," the comment of the 

 New York Evening Post appeals most 

 strongly in these words : 



Five hundred thousand symmetrical 

 straight-limbed young trees, from three to 

 twenty feet tall, a vast incipient forest, 

 were chopped down to supply the Christ- 

 mas trade of New York. 



Of this number, seventy-two carloads, 

 with an average of 1500 trees to the car, 

 came from the Adirondacks, an aggregate 

 of 108.000 trees. Over four-fifths of the 

 trees used, however, came by boat from 

 Maine, New Jersey and Connecticut. The 

 dealers are naturally jubilant over the 

 trade they have had : " The largest busi- 

 ness in trees and greens in their history," 

 they say. But one among them said : 



" I could not help but feel sorry at the 

 ruthless slaughter made on our forests to 

 give a single day's joy. The sight of so 

 many tender, beautifully formed trees re- 

 minded me of so many youths, whose 

 value lay only in their maturity, being 

 mown down to gratify children under the 

 age of reason." 



To Preserve Cuban Forests. 



General Ruis Rivera, Secretary of Ag- 

 riculture, Industry and Commerce, has 

 addressed a communication to General 





