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FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



December, 1902. 



Annual Report of the Commissioner of the Gen- 

 eral Land Office. For the fiscal year end- 

 ing June 30, 1902. Describing the work 

 of the Division of Forest Reserves. De- 

 partment of the Interior. Pp. 120. 

 The report of the General Land Office on the 

 work of the Division of Forest Reserves is of 

 unusual interest this year as showing that al- 

 ready appreciable benefit has resulted from the 

 reorganization of that division in November 

 last, by placing it under the charge of a trained 

 forester, with several forest experts, having 

 both technical and practical experience to 

 assist in developing the work. 



The forest working force has been re-ar- 

 ranged, placing the forest supervisors in direct 

 charge of their respective reserves, making the 

 duties of the forest superintendents those of 

 local inspectors, and grading the rangerforce 

 into three classes, under the titles of assistant 

 supervisors, rangers, and guards.^ 



The present arrangement avoids consider- 

 able friction, and leads to greater dispatch in 

 disposing of business. 



Much benefit is shown to have resulted from 

 the first effort at inaugurating an established 

 system of timber sales in one of the reserves, 

 namely, the Black Hills Forest Reserve in 

 South Dakota, where the revenue derived 

 from furnishing timber supplies to meet local 

 demands has been double the expense con- 

 nected with the work. Such a result empha- 

 sizes the advisability of extending the system 

 to all of our forested lands. 



Special stress is laid upon the need for the 

 innnediate withdrawal of all public lands which 

 are of more value for forest uses than for other 

 purposes. This is recommended not only with 

 a view to preserving the timber supply, but in 

 the interest of irrigation. It is pointed out that 

 the recent passage by Congress of the bill in- 

 augurating an irrigation policy may, in its 

 effect, be regarded as amounting, indirectly, 

 to legislation broadening our national forest 

 work. To insure effective operation of that 

 law it is necessary that the forest growth upon 

 all watersheds throughotit the public domain, 

 in the states and territories affected, should 

 be preserved as an integral part of the work of 

 water conservation. 



The establishment of reserves for this pur- 

 pose marks a third phase of the work already 

 reached in the development of our forest sys- 

 tem ; the work, as now in hand, extending to 

 the care of existing forests, reforestation of 

 denuded areas, and afforesting treeless regions. 

 It is shown that during the year five of the 

 existing forest reserves were enlarged, the areas 

 of four were reduced, and fifteen additional 

 reserves were established. Extensive tempo- 

 rary withdrawals of lands were made in a num- 

 ber of other cases, in which the advisability of 

 establishing reserves is still under considera- 

 tion. 



The most gratifying showing in the report 

 is probably the efficiency of the work of the 

 forest force, evidenced in the large number 

 of fires reported as having been discovered 



and extinguished, the decrease in the area 

 burned over, and the reduction in the expense 

 incurred in fighting fires. While forest fires 

 have been unusually destructive to both life 

 and property in a number of states during the 

 past season, owing to unprecedented drouth, 

 the forest reserves in the same regions have 

 been kept comparatively free from serious 

 fires. As a result, the people in those com- 

 munities have become convinced that govern- 

 ment control of the forests means protection 

 from fires. This fact has led to numbers of 

 petitions being submitted from various quar- 

 ters urging the establishment of forest re- 

 serves. 



Field Operations of the Bureau of Soils (1901). 



Third Report, by Milton Whitney, 

 Chief of the Bureau of Soils, U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. Pp. 647. Illustrated 

 and accompanied by a portfolio of Maps. 

 Published b}' the Department. 

 This report is of particular interest on ac- 

 count of its record of the relation of the alkali 

 and irrigation problems, and its general rec- 

 ommendations on soil reclamation by the use 

 of irrigation and drainage. In the reports of 

 the soil investigations of the tobacco lands of 

 the Eastern and Southern States general plant 

 investigations have been made to supplement 

 the soil surveys, with advice as to soil man- 

 agement, growths, etc. Probably the most 

 spectacular and successful experiment ever 

 attempted by the Department of Agriculture 

 was undertaken and carried through by the 

 Tobacco Investigations Division of this Bureau 

 under Mr. M. L. Floj'd, who has left the em- 

 ploy of the Government to take charge of the 

 shade-grown tobacco industry in Connecticut 

 for a private corporation. 



But to those interested in irrigation and soil 

 reclamation the most important part of the 

 report is that devoted to the western soil sur- 

 veys and particularly to those of California. 

 Here the questions of sub and surface irriga- 

 tion and drainage are fully gone into and the 

 recommendations made should be of the 

 utmost value to farmers in that region and to 

 those who contemplate taking up irrigated 

 lands. Forestry AND Irrigation will pub- 

 lish later full resumes of the field operations 

 of value to the magazine's readers. 



Canadian Forestry Association. Report of the 

 Third Annual Meeting. Pp. 128. 'Illus- 

 trated by 17 half-tones from drawings and 

 photographs. Ottawa : Government Print- 

 ing Bureau. 

 In addition to the record of the meeting of 

 the association which was held last March at 

 Ottawa, this report contains many interesting 

 papers, those of a popular nature being on the 

 Canadian forest fires of 1901, the planting of 

 trees on the great treeless prairies of Manitoba, 

 Assiniboia, and Alberta provinces, and the 

 Eesthetic and economic value of tree planting 

 about residences in those regions. 



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