1900. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



267 



day would have been worth about three 

 and one-half million dollars on the stump. 



Farther west on the eastern slope of the 

 Rocky Mountains in the Lewis and Clark 

 Forest Reserve 1,000 square miles out of 

 the i, 600 have been so severely burned 

 that only a few trees have survived and the 

 mountain sides are grey with dead trees. 



Cut-over lands are of course more liable 

 to fire. 



In Minnesota about 90% of the stump 

 lands have been overrun by fire which has 

 killed most of the trees left and destroyed 

 seeds, seedlings, and seed bed with all 

 prospect of a near future forest crop. 



The prevention of this waste lies not so 

 much in putting out fires as in preventing 

 their start. 



The fires set to burn tops are unneces- 

 sary. (Do not misunderstand me. There 

 is no such thing in practice among lumber- 

 men as burning tops without injuring the 

 remaining forest; by "burning tops" 

 lumbermen mean setting fire in the win- 

 ter's slashing and letting it burn all over.) 

 Much of the clearing that is done by fire 

 is unncessary, but these cases cannot be 

 decided at a distance. They must each be 

 studied and decided upon according to the 

 varying circumstances. 



The method of prevention is the puzzle. 

 The best state of affairs would be to have 

 every one in the woods in a proper state of 

 mind regarding fire ; but we cannot hope 

 for this yet. 



The present system in Minnesota is 

 good, but it is too far in advance of the 

 times. It is too ideal. It depends too 

 much upon the will of people who are 

 often interested in setting fires and the 

 jurisdiction is too much under local influ- 

 ence. Local interests in preventing fires 

 are often small, frequently the residents are 

 in favor of burning the country over re- 

 gardless of the non-resident owners, or of 

 State or federal ownership, or revenue. 



There is urgent need of more thorough 



<_> o 



keeping of the fire laws and this can be 

 done only by a patrol above local influence. 

 Such a patrol should not antagonize but 

 should be able to overrule improper, es- 

 pecially the flagrant, misuses of fire. The 

 patrol of the Lewis and Clark Forest Re- 

 serve has proved the efficiency of the system 

 adopted for the forest reserves. It onlv 

 needs good men to carry it out. 



Let that system be modified to suit 

 localities where individual as well as pub- 

 lic interests exist and the next step in 

 forest protection will be made. 



"During the past summer Mr. Morris 

 K. Jesup made a valuable and instructive 

 addition to the museum of the (N. Y. 

 Botanical) Garden. It consists of a block 

 representing the wood of each of the differ- 

 ent North American trees. The specimens 

 are duplicates from the great collection of 

 North American Forestry preserved in the 

 American Museum of Natural History. * 



" The collection has been temporarily 

 installed in the east hall of the economic 

 museum, in the space previously set aside 

 for woods and timbers, and their products. 

 Each specimen is provided with a label 

 indicating, first, the common or local name 

 of the tree, second, the name of the species, 

 and third, the geographical distribution. 

 The distribution of our trees is interesting 

 from several standpoints, and this collec- 

 tion as it is now labelled emphasizes the 

 following facts which seem worthy of 

 notice : 



"The specimens represent about 66 

 natural families, and 500 species, which 

 fall into about 173 genera. A few of the 

 species are generally distributed over nearly 

 the whole of North America, but the great 

 majority are considerably restricted in their 

 geographical ranges. Leaving out of con- 

 sideration such species as are widely dis- 

 tributed, we find that the area east of the 

 looth meridian produces fully twice as 

 many different kinds of trees as the area to 

 the west of it. There may be many more 

 trees in the northern regions than in the 

 southern from the standpoint of quantity, 

 but the south surpasses the north in the 

 variety of species; the southwest po^es^e.s 

 over twice as manv ilitTeivnt kinds of trees 

 peculiar to itself as the northwest, \\hile 

 there are but seven species peculiar to the 

 northeast as against the one hundred and 

 eighty-one peeuli ir to the southeast. 

 Journal of the \ . J. Botanical 



