1900. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



Division are about to appear in print, as 

 Bulletin No. 27, of the Division, under the 

 title, ' Practical Tree Planting in Opera- 

 tion." This bulletin reviews the general 

 situation in what may be called the tree 

 planting region. The sort of work it out- 

 lines will be followed up vigorously this 

 summer. 



As a further result of its work in help 

 to tree planters the Division of Forestrv 

 will place two or three field parties in the 

 plains region of the West after July ist. 

 These will study the encroachments of 

 trees on the plains and will also estimate 

 by valuation surveys, the kinds, growth 

 and size of trees in planted groves. This 

 work will give for the first time an approx- 

 imate estimate of the yield of planted trees 

 and of the actual ^timber value of forest 

 plantations in the United States. 



Wrecking Dams ' ' ^ithin the past fortnight 

 and Stealing two important logging dams 

 Timber. Qn the upper Mississippi 



River have been blown out by means of 

 dynamite handled by lawless men. The 

 one was on the Crow Wing, where a drive 

 of 54.000.000 feet of logs was dependent 

 on the water of the dam ; the other on 

 Bemidji Lake, where 30.000.000 feet of 

 logs were ready to come out through the 

 dam. The destruction of the Crow Wing 



O 



dam was the second depredation of the 

 sort committed there within the past two 

 years. 



Both of these cases are aggravated acts 

 of lawlessness. Both were done by cit- 

 izens near the dams and for the alleged 

 reason that the dams flooded property 

 owned by citizens. The first destruction 

 of the Crow Wing dam was affected while 

 the watchmen were away under arrest on 

 charges trumped up by the people who 

 destroyed the dam. The second destruc- 

 tion was probably by the same people, 

 though the owners of the dam had paid 

 liberally for all damages claimed. The 

 wrecking of the Bemidji dam was. how- 

 ever, a step beyond the Crow Wing crime. 

 Presumably for purposes of spite, but on 

 pretended grounds of damage from high 

 water, the Sheriff of Beltrami County. 



with a posse of deputies, ordered the 

 watchmen off the dam, and. in spite of 

 their promises to raise the gates and give 

 the desired relief, blew up the dam after 

 the gate had been raised : then, as if from 

 sheer wantonness, returned and blev\ 

 the remnants of the dam to pieces. This 

 they professed to do on the order of the 

 Board of Health of Beltrami village, in 

 spite of the fact that the village had urged 

 the construction of the dam and had never 

 made complaint to the owners concerning 

 the dam. 



There is something about the woods 

 life in Minnesota probably common to 

 other wooded sections that encourages 

 thieving and destruction of property owned 

 by non-residents. About Bemidji. timber 

 stealing by settlers is such a common cus- 

 tom as to be thought not even a minor 

 error. Many small mills saw steadily on 

 timber largely stolen by settlers from 

 tracts owned by absentees, but contiguous 

 to the homesteads of the thieves. This 

 timber is generally stolen in a most waste- 

 ful way. the finest and most accessible 

 trees being felled and but one or two clear 

 logs taken from them, the rest being left 

 to rot. The lumber made from these 

 stolen logs is hauled to railway stations, 

 sometimes as far as thirty miles from the 

 stolen timber tracts. The thief is gen- 

 erally immune from punishment, for he 

 knows that he will be tried bv a jury of 

 his peers, that is to say. a jury of timber 

 thieves. The laws protecting human life 

 were never violated in the black parishes 

 of Mississippi with more impunity than 

 are the laws protecting non-resident prop- 

 erty in the Pine counties of Minnesota." 

 ^Mississippi I 'allev L umber man . 



The Mohave River A field party trom the 

 Watershed. Division of Forestry has 



started lor southern California to make 

 a detailed investigation of the soil cover 

 of the watershed of the head waters of 

 the Mohave River. A preliminary in- 

 vestigation of this watershed was made in 

 October. 1899. when it was ascertained 

 that comprehensive data regarding precipi- 

 tation, runoff, wind velocity, and evapora- 





