1900. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



69 



ting of timber by any one upon any unin- 

 closed lot of land without first placing 

 upon record in the Clerk's office the title 

 under which the land is held or without 

 written consent from the party from whom 

 the timber is leased. 



The Commissioner of the Department 

 of Lands, Forests and* Fisheries of the 

 Province of Quebec, Canada, has been 

 made president of an international organ- 

 ization entitled " The North American 

 Fish and Game Protective Association." 

 The officers elected February 3d are : 

 President, Hon. S. N. Parent, Montreal, 

 Canada; first vice-president, John W. 

 Titcomb, Vermont; second vice-president, 

 S. T. Bastedo, Ontario ; third vice-presi- 

 dent, John Fottler, Jr., Massachusetts; 



fourth vice-president, Hon. A. T. Dunn, 

 New Brunswick; fifth vice-president, 

 Charles E. Oak, Maine ; sixth vice-presi- 

 dent, W. H. Wilson, New York; joint 

 secretaries, L. Z. Joncas and Rene Du- 

 pont, Quebec, and D. J. Smith, New 

 Brunswick. 



An extraordinary floor, in the London 

 Coal Exchange, is constructed of inlaid 

 wood, with the pieces so arranged as to 

 represent the mariner's compass. Some of 

 the wooden pieces, of which there are al- 

 together four thousand, have interesting 

 historical associations. The piece forming 

 the haft of the dagger in the city corpora- 

 tion arms is a portion of a tree planted by 

 Peter the Great when he worked as a ship- 

 wright at Deptford. 



CURRENT COMMENT. 



It is exceedingly gratifying to observe 

 that several newspapers are giving some 

 slight attention to forest fires, a calamity 

 which has robbed New Jersey of millions 

 of dollars, made vast ai'eas of great natural 

 wealth a desert waste, destroyed timber, 

 game and rich soil, dried up streams and 

 caused damage which a century can hardly 

 repair and which no politician imagining 

 himself a statesman has attempted to pre- 

 vent. Forest fires in New Jersey are 

 mostly preventable. Carelessness of the 

 most inexcusable kind causes the greater 

 part of them. A very little legislation 

 and a very trifling appropriation or ex- 

 penditure would effect a cure. 



Certain counties should have the option 

 of appropriating a small sum to defray the 

 expense of township fire wardens in warn- 

 ing the bush burners and prosecuting 

 people who are careless with fires. It is 

 vastly to the benefit of men, women and 

 school children to prevent forest fh'es, and 

 the assistance and cooperation of all can in 

 time be secured. For New Jersey to sit 

 down in despair and allow large areas to 

 be annually swept by-flames when New 

 York and Pennsylvania are accomplishing 



so much is certainly not very much to the 

 credit of New Jersey. In some of the 

 state departments thousands of dollars are 

 spent every year for items of much less 

 consequence than forest preservation. 

 Atlantic City Daily Union. 



Not many years ago Black Walnut had 

 so little value that it was used for fuel in 

 various parts of the country. As its value 

 has increased in recent years so rapidly, 

 many land owners are now planting Black 

 Walnut as an investment, as has been 

 urged for years by former Secretary of 

 Agriculture J. Sterling Morton of Ne- 

 braska. Commenting upon the present 

 value of the wood the Lancaster (Pa.) 

 New Era says : 



" Agents for European firms are still 

 making their annual rounds through this 

 and neighboring counties buying the trunks 

 of Walnut trees. We see sales have been 

 made running from $50 to $125 for single 

 trees. It is a very profitable business for 

 the seller, and the wonder is that every 

 farmer in the state does not set out as 

 many trees as he can find room for. The 



