1900. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



25' 



any work." St. Louis Lumberman^ Au- 

 gust. 



Towns With- 

 out a Tree. 



" How many readers of 

 Forest Leaves can picture 

 the following situation, or 

 believe that the statement is true : ' There 

 are towns in our State to-day without a 

 tree, or shrub, or even a bit of lawn. Our 

 children are missing that element of re- 

 finement which comes from beautiful sur- 

 roundings outside the home. Girls and 

 boys are nearing maturity in some locali- 

 ties in the State to which any tree would 

 be of interest, and to whom a glimpse of 

 a fruit tree in blossom would be a glimpse 

 into Paradise.' 



" It apparently is true, nevertheless, and 

 appears in a late bulletin of the Wyoming 

 Agricultural Experiment Station. 



" Wyoming is not an arid region, as the 

 above implies, but contains an increasing 

 population and three national forest re- 

 serves! Two points are emphasized by 

 the quotation : first, that settlers, the older 



ones at any rate, rarely considered the im- 

 portance of trees as shelter to their houses, 

 their stock and their crops, and the source 

 of lumber and fuel ; second, that the for- 

 estry movement is spreading widely, and 

 dwellers in such regions realize that a bet- 

 ter state of affairs is possible for them. 



"What we call the forestry problem has 

 many phases, one or more applicable to 

 every locality, but all closely related. If 

 we, in Pennsylvania, need to preserve and 

 reestablish the forests on our hill-sides to 

 save the streams, to prevent the washing 

 away of valuable soil, and to afford health- 

 ful retreats for a large population, to say 

 nothing of making permanent the great 

 lumbering industry, our working for these 

 things encourages our neighbors to look 

 after their needs, to see possibilities that 

 had not occurred to them before. 



" And so by mutual help and inspira- 

 tion the good work goes on, and brings 

 nearer the day wherein the whole country 

 will see the true value of trees and for- 

 ests." A. G. in forest Leaves for August. 



REVIEW OF AMERICAN AND FOREIGN PERIODICAL 



LITERATURE. 



Among the articles woithy of mention in re- 

 cent foreign forestry periodical literature the 

 series entitled Naturivisscnschaftliche undforst- 

 liche Studien ini Nordwestlichen Russland, by 

 Prof. Dr. Heinrich Mayr, of the University of . 

 Munich, deserves first place. They appeared in 

 Nos. III., IV. and V. (1900) of the Allgemeine 

 Forst und Jagdzeitung but have since been re- 

 printed together in pamphlet form. This pam- 

 phlet is so full of interesting suggestions that a 

 fair review of it would almost equal a literal 

 translation. Its distinguished author was for- 

 merly a professor in the University of Tokio, 

 Japan. He visited this country some years ago, 

 and has written a book entitled "The Forests of 

 America." He is a man who fearlessly tears 

 down old theories, propagates new ones, and 

 does an excellent work for Germany, especially 

 Bavaria, in importing and experimenting with 

 exotics from all parts of the world. 



Russia, says Dr. Mayr, of all countries in Eu- 

 rope, is least visited, because of its immense dis- 

 tances and scant railroad facilities. Russians 

 cannot conceive of traveling for pleasure nor of 



rinding anything of interest to foresters in the 

 vast monotonous plain between the White, Bal- 

 tic, Black and Caspian Seas. 



Prof. Mayr was especially interested in the 

 seed supply question. It has long been the cus- 

 tom to buy Spruce seed in northern climates in 

 order to secure hardy plants. This is wrong, 

 says Prof. Mayr, for two reasons : first, we are 

 ignorant of the condition of the young plants in 

 northern climates, and second we are ignorant 

 of the conditions and habitat of our own Spruce 

 stands in Alpiue regions. In such regions the 

 young plants are protected by heavy snow. 

 Their seed yield trees which require similar pro- 

 tection in youth. Such plants are really not 

 frost-hardy. If frost-hardiness is an inherited 

 trait, other traits must also be inheritable. 

 Among these undesirable traits, slow-develop- 

 ment and slow-increase, also stunted form, must 

 be transmissible. The inheritance of such ten- 

 dencies would outweigh the advantages of frost- 

 hardiness. 



The Spruce sheds its seeds during several 

 weeks and thus produces plants which are both 



