244 



THE FORESTER. 



October, 



The Forester, 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY 



The American Forestry Association, 



AND 



Devoted to Arboriculture and Forestry, the 



Care and Use of Forests and Forest 



Trees, and Related Subjects. 



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ing watched carefully by a large force of 

 men." It will be noticed that this report 

 did not say that the fire was entirely put 

 out. To make certain of this only a great 

 deal of unremitting drudgery, to which ir- 

 regular labor could not easily be called in 

 as in an emergency, would suffice. Could 

 there be any stronger argument for mere 

 numbers in the permanent force of forest 



rangers r 



Vol. VI. 



OCTQBER, 1900. 



No. 10. 



The last number of the 

 Sierra n Madre. FORESTER went to press 

 with the statement regard- 

 ing the Santa Anita fire that the wonder 

 was, not that it " should have burned for 

 a fortnight, but that it took no longer to 

 bring it under control." A few hours 

 later reports began to arrive in clippings 

 from different California papers which 

 showed that either this fire had by no 

 means been extinguished during the first 

 days of August, or that a new one had later 

 broken out in the same region, and that 

 under favoring circumstances and perhaps 

 a not unnatural relaxation of vigilance, it 

 had got under way with renewed vigor, 

 and burned away once more over the 

 mountain sides of the San Gabriel Re- 

 serve. It invaded one of the water- 

 sheds from which Los Angeles draws its 

 water supply, and apparently threatened 

 to keep on indefinitely before the steady 

 wind. But after a week, heavy fogs on 

 tlu- ;}oth and 3ist of the month did what 

 rain could not have been expected to do 

 till autumn so reduced the size and speed 

 of the fire that it was once more possible 

 "to bring it under control." To quote 

 (.IK- of thi' hist reports which gave an ac- 

 nt of the state of things in specific 

 terms, there remained on August 315! only 

 smouldering logs, which were "be- 



In no way is the rapid pro- 

 of gress which the country has 

 been making toward a rea- 

 sonable sense of the importance of its for- 

 ests and of forestry during the last couple 

 of years shown more clearly than in its 

 greatly increased educational facilities. 

 Indeed one might almost say that these 

 have not so much developed, as sprung 

 suddenly from nothing into vigorous ex- 

 istence. Until less than three years ago 

 anyone who wished to make forestry his 

 profession could receive only rudimen- 

 tary and unsystematic instruction at home, 

 and had to go to European schools for a 

 good part of his education. Whatever 

 the differences between European and 

 American trees and economic conditions 

 made it impossible for him to learn abroad 

 he had still to learn well nigh entirely by 

 himself. This autumn, however, no less 

 than three well-equipped forest schools 

 open for the winter term at Biltmore, 

 N. C., at New Haven and at Cornell; 

 and at these institutions intruction is being 

 given by the best and most experienced of 

 America's foresters. In addition to this 

 many State colleges and agricultural 

 schools are devoting more or less time to 

 the elementary principles of forest plant- 

 ing and conservation, and, further, the 

 Government has, during the past year and 

 a-haif, been giving some eighty odd 

 " student-assistants " training in the work 

 of making surveys and field measurements. 

 How great the value to America of this 

 educational work really is becomes clear 

 when one considers the difficulties which 

 now confront whoever tries to solve any 

 of the many forest problems with which 

 the country is concerned. Of all our 

 valuable trees there is hardly one of which 



