222 



THE FORESTER. 



September, 



as benefit the community, is unhappily 

 new to the American mind, and so has to 

 encounter all the forces of mental inertia, 

 business timidity, and prejudice against 

 the new. Under these conditions, the peo- 

 pie who try to educate and direct public 

 opinion should take every care not to mis- 

 represent forestry and so retard the spread 

 of truth. It is safe to say that nothing 

 could add more to the material well-being 

 of the country than to have its land own- 

 ers, big and little, wake up to a perception 

 of the essential practicality of forestry, and 

 to the suspicion that where something un- 

 practical has been called forestry, somebody 

 has made a mistake. This idea should be 

 emphasized on every opportunity. To 

 strengthen an argument for forest reserves 

 by speaking as if this truth were uncer- 

 tain, is not only unnecessary, but harm- 

 ful, and, however generous the intention, 

 can only load a good plea with poison. 

 To represent the forester as one intent on 

 setting out Pines that will take eighty 

 years to mature, to make him a mere tree- 

 planter and agitator for costly reserves, and 

 to make unreasonable financial demands 

 of him this is simply to fly in the face 

 of what is really the true state of things, 

 and to throw obstacles in the way of a 

 good and much-needed work. 



In cheerful contrast 

 to loose and careless 

 misconceptions of the 

 scope and nature of forestry is the very 

 practical and wholesome interest in it 

 by the number of applications for 

 ? position of student-assistant under the 

 ivision of Forestry. This position was 

 eated somewhat over a year ago for the 

 ouble purpose of giving young men, who 

 inking of engaging in forestry as a 

 Dn, practical experience and assis- 

 wider the supervision of experts, and 

 intelligent assistance for the 

 slight cost. No effort was 

 'ertise the opportunity, but be- 

 summer field-season of 1899 had 

 applications were received. 

 232 came in, more than 

 ; as many as the previous year. 



Striking as this increase is, its full signifi- 

 cance cannot be appreciated until it is 

 known that information about the student- 

 assistantship and the work in the field had 

 to spread lai'gely through the twenty or so 

 students of Yale, Harvard and other uni- 

 versities and colleges, who had appoint- 

 ments the first year, and through their 

 friends. Thus 100 of this year's 232 ap- 

 plications came from Harvard and Yale 

 alone, and 77 more were scattered over 

 the Atlantic States near-by. If the 

 information could have been spread 

 throughout the Middle States as easily as 

 it was in the neighborhood of these larger 

 universities, the number of applications 

 would probably have been greater still. 

 Sixty-one of those who applied were ap- 

 pointed and sent to different parts of the 

 country. These receive $2=5.00 a month 

 each and their expenses in the field not 

 enough to allure those who have no inter- 

 est in the work. Their time is spent 

 chiefly in making forest surveys and in 

 collecting measurements of trees and their 

 growth, from all of which the experts of 

 the Division of Forestry can later draw 

 conclusions and results. If they are ob- 

 servant and of an inquisitive turn of mind, 

 the summer's work will afford them the 

 best of opportunities for learning the 

 character of the questions a forester has to 

 deal with and the ways in which he does 

 a part of his work. 



In a communica- 

 tion to the American 

 Lumberman of Au- 

 gust iSth, Mr. C. A. Schenck proposes 

 the formation, under the Lumberman's 

 auspices, of a joint stock company, issuing 

 $100 shares, to be known as tl The Amer- 

 ican Reforestation Company." The ob- 

 ject of this company is to procure from 

 the Legislatures of Minnesota, Wisconsin, 

 Michigan, or the Federal Government, 

 release from taxes and protection from 

 fire for an area of cut-over land which it 

 proposes to reforest. Provided five hun- 

 dred shares can be issued at the beginning, 

 the payment of 5% of the face value of 

 the shares for the necessary expenses of 



