296 



THE FORESTER. 



December, 



lectures on forestry. This same railroad 

 company a few weeks ago requested from 

 the Bureau of Forestry a working plan 

 for a tract of timberland 125,000 acres in 

 extent. 



The foregoing are but " signs of the 

 times." Forestry and irrigation have ar- 

 rived and they have come to stay. 



J* 



Forestry in the There are a great many 

 High Schools. ways of interesting the 

 people of this country in 

 the rational treatment of our remaining for- 

 ests, but the one sure and lasting wav is to 

 educate them up to a true appreciation of the 

 prominent place forests have in the welfare 

 of the nation. ISlow that the general public 

 are taking more interest in the matter, and 

 forest schools are being established to train 

 young men for the profession of forestry, 

 it would be a good idea to extend the plan 

 of education still further. Bv teaching: 

 high school students something about the 

 economic value of forests a great step for- 

 ward will be made. Dr. Jno. Gifford, of 

 the New York State College of Forestry, 

 had an interestingarticletouching this point 

 in a recent number of the School Review, 

 from which we quote the following : 



"For the acquisition of knowledge of a 

 general nature relating to the forest which 

 every man and woman should know, the 

 high school is the place. All are agreed 

 that in case it should be taught at all it 

 does not belong below the upper grades of 

 the high school. It is also true that a 

 very large proportion of our high-school 

 graduates would never acquire such knowl- 

 edge unless they get it in the high school, 

 because many of them never go to colleges 

 and universities, and because many of 

 our colleges and universities do not offer 

 instruction in many of the most important 

 subjects. There is no subject, for in- 

 stance, of more general interest and of 

 more importance than ethnology, yet how 

 few even of our great universities offer in- 

 struction in this subject and how few of 

 their graduates know even the names, to 

 say nothing of the natures, of the peoples 

 who once inhabited America. 



"It is not my intention to suggest the 

 addition of another subject to the high- 

 school curriculum. It should be gfiven, 

 however, the place in physical and com- 

 mercial geography to which its importance 



entitles it. It is very easy for a man to 

 exaggerate the importance of his specialty. 

 Few doubt, however, the importance of 

 forests. As compared with Europe, gen- 

 eral information on the subject is wofully 

 lacking throughout this country. Very 

 few know the meaning of forestrv. Ar- 

 bor Day celebrations have done much to 

 stimulate an appreciation of trees but 

 these celebrations are often farcical, if not 

 misleading in nature. A song is sung, 

 poetry recited, and then a few trees, often 

 only one, are carelessly stuck in the 

 ground, often in the very place which 

 should be left open. A very small pro- 

 portion of these trees live, however. " O, 

 Woodman, Spare that Tree " is sung. A 

 forester never hesitates to cut a tree if it is 

 ready to cut, but he always plants more 

 and plants them well. Aside from this 

 question of Arbor Day, an institution 

 which has been adopted in many parts of 

 the world and which will do lasting good 

 if properly conducted, why should forestry 

 be taught in high schools ? First of all, 

 every great movement in this country must 

 have popular support back of it. 



" Our people must be educated to a point 

 where they will know the advantages of a 

 forest cover and the meaning of forestry. 

 When this occurs the future of forestry is 

 assured. The main cause of reckless, 

 wasteful forest destruction in this country 



J 



is ignorance. It is certainly one of the 

 functions of the public school to overcome 

 this difficulty. It is not necessary to in- 

 troduce forestry into the public schools of 

 Germany because forestry is born and bred 

 into the body of every German. The 

 proper care of forests is there a matter of 

 course." ^ 



The Forest In his annual report 



Reserves Again, just published, Secretary 

 Hitchcock, of the De- 

 partment of the Interior, states that the 

 United States forest reserves should be 

 under the direction of trained foresters. 

 The Secretary says that the time for the 

 introduction of piactical forestry on the 

 forest reserves has come. States and pri- 

 vate owners of forest land are, he says, 

 already cooperating with the Government 

 for the better handling of their holdings to 

 the extent of more than 5,000,000 acres. 



Forestry, dealing as it does with a source 

 of wealth produced by the soil, is prop- 



