1 34 FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION March 



the tender buds and twigs of the sap- structive insects ; but where a forest is 

 lings are cropped, and the large trees attacked the devastation is so wide- 

 suffer from the trampled condition of spread that the extermination of these 

 the ground beneath their branches. pests would require an expenditure of 



In many of the old sugar places, how- money exceeding many times the value 

 ever, it may not be necessary to do any of the timber and land. This was dem- 

 planting, for the desired object may be onstrated in Massachusetts, where the 

 attained by cultivating and fostering a state authorities have already expended 

 growth of the more promising saplings within a few years several hundred thou- 

 which are standing in the underbrush. sand dollars in controlling the ravages 

 I was talking recently with a sugar of the gypsy moth. There is one favor- 

 maker from Delaware county, in the able feature, however, in this matter, 

 State of New York, whose sugar woods that in two or three years the insects 

 have been killed by insects ; but the in- disappear as mysteriously as they come, 

 sects did not injure the young trees, and long intervals intervening before their 

 so the owner, as he tells me, proposes to reappearance. I think there is good 

 restore his orchard by a careful cultiva- reason in the claim made by some orni- 

 tion of selected saplings, and thereby thologists, that the outbreak of these 

 save the expense of replanting. In the pests is largely due to the destruction 

 restoration of a sugar bush by the skill- of our insectivorous birds, which every 

 ful treatment of the young trees, a year are ruthlessly slaughtered by the 

 farmer has an opportunity to practice thousand to furnish material for milli- 

 one of the most important branches of nery establishments, 

 scientific forestry. When a sugarmaker The loss from forest fire is one that 

 or lumberman travels through the can be largely controlled and minimized 

 planted forests in Europe he is surprised by judicious forest work. Nearly every 

 to see how many trees there are to the one has doubtless had experience in 

 acre as compared with the wild, uncul- fighting woodland fires, and needs no- 

 tivated woods of this country. In any information as to the best methods to- 

 sugar woods the soil will nourish and be employed ; but organization and sys- 

 sustain a much larger number of trees tematic methods are essential in attack- 

 than are standing there now, and where ing a forest fire ; and so I would com- 

 the trees stand close together there cer- mend the admirable system which the 

 tainly will be more money made and less State of New York has evolved for the 

 labor needed in gathering sap than in protection of its woodlands from firc- 

 one where they are widely scattered. a system which is based upon seventeen 



Forestry, among other things, means years of practical experience, during 

 forest preservation and the protection of which the law has been amended from 

 woodlands from insect blight, fires, and time to time in order to better perfect 

 other destructive agencies. It may be its practical working. Under that law 

 well to consider here how far the prin- we have in each forest town an official 

 ciples of forestry are applicable to the who is known as the fire warden. It 

 protection of sugar woods. As regards devolves upon him whenever the smoke 

 the insects, which a few years ago of a forest fire is seen to warn out 

 wrought such havoc in the forests and promptly a posse of men, go to the 

 maple orchards of Vermont, I am frank place as quickly as possible, and use 

 to say that foresters everywhere have every means to extinguish or control 

 met with little success in controlling their the fire. In order to guard against de- 

 ravages. In our towns and along our lay and insure prompt service, each 

 highways in New York the state ento- town is divided into districts of suitable 

 mologist and his assistants have sue- size, in which the town fire warden ap- 

 ceeded in saving shade trees which have points a deputy with the same powers 

 been attacked and in getting the evil as his own. The men's wages and 

 under partial control. This was accom- other expenses incurred in this work 

 plished by spraying the trees and by are paid by the town, which receives in 

 gathering the cocoons and eggs of de- turn a rebate of one-half from the state. 



