210 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



April 



great deal with the seasons. Some years 

 no irrigation is needed, in others all 

 crops need it, but in most years some 

 crops are helped by it. Professor Voor- 

 hees, who has charge of this work, re- 

 ports that, in his opinion, irrigation 

 where tried has paid well. Pumping 

 from streams or wells is the most com- 

 mon way of getting water for fruit and 

 garden irrigation. Small plants, fur- 

 nishing water enough for from five to 

 ten acres, including pump and engine, 

 cost from $200 to $500. 



University of 

 Michigan. 



On March 5 the Re- 

 gents of the University 

 of Michigan selected 

 Professor Filibert Roth, of the Bureau 

 of Forestry and formerly chief of the 

 Division of Forest Reserves, Depart- 

 ment of the Interior, to fill the chair of 

 forestry in the University. With the 

 assistance of Mr. C. A. Davis, Professor 

 Roth will inaugurate a regular course 

 in forestry with the opening of the next 

 college year. As planned at present, it 

 will be a two-year post-graduate course 

 leading to the degree of Master of. 

 Science in Forestry. 



The University and the State of Mich- 

 igan are to be congratulated on this step, 

 for few of the states offer a better field 

 for effective work in forestry than Mich- 

 igan. It is one of the older states, and 

 although possessing an unusually well 

 cultivated and prosperous farming com- 

 munity, it has, nevertheless, like a num- 

 ber of others, large forest districts where 

 the soil conditions and climate will al- 

 ways restrict and discourage efforts at 

 agriculture. Of the 36,000,000 acres 

 included in the area of the state, fully 

 one-half is located in what may be 

 termed the forest counties, including 

 the 10,000,000 acres of the Northern 

 Peninsula. Of these forest counties, 

 full 90 per cent is not even settled but 

 is land still in the hands of lumbermen, 

 speculators, and the state and federal 

 governments. 



After years of effort to get rid of the 



large tracts of tax-title lands, the state 



is beginning to pursue the right policy 



m'l follow the wise example set by the 



-t:ites of New York and Pennsylvania, 



in reserving these lands, which can only 

 be made useful to the people of the coun- 

 try if managed by a permanent body 

 and preferably by the state or nation 

 itself. 



In addition to this wise change of 

 policy on the part of the state, there is 

 a general awakening among all classes of 

 land-owners. Nearly all people begin to 

 see the simple truth, that no county or 

 town, and usually not even a single quar- 

 ter-section of land is all tillable land, but 

 that there is everywhere land which is 

 better left to forest. 



A school of forestry at the state uni- 

 versity should go a long way toward 

 arousing the people to a full apprecia- 

 tion of the forest needs of the state. 

 In Professor Roth the University of 

 Michigan has secured a man of wide 

 experience as a forester. He is one of 

 their own graduates ; was for several 

 years in the faculty of the New York 

 State College of Forestry, and above 

 all, he has an intimate knowledge of the 

 forest conditions of Michigan. With 

 the forest school in such hands, and an 

 excellent state forest commission com- 

 posed of men thoroughly alive to the sit- 

 uation, it would seem that an unusually 

 good start has been made in Michigan. 



Forestry in The annual meeting of 

 Canada, the Canadian Forestry 



Association was held at 

 Ottawa in March. For the first time 

 the association elected a practical lum- 

 berman to the presidency, Mr. Hiram 

 Robinson, of Hawkesbury, Ontario, be- 

 ing chosen. 



The complete list of officers elected is 

 as follows : Patron, the Earl of Minto, 

 Governor-General of Canada; Honorary 

 President, William Little, Montreal ; 

 President, Hiram Robinson, Hawkes- 

 bury ; Vice-President, Aubrey White, 

 Deputy Commissioner of Crown Lands 

 for Ontario, Toronto ; Secretary, E. 

 Stewart, Dominion Superintendent of 

 Forestry, Ottawa ; Assistant Secretary 

 and Treasurer, R. H. Campbell, De- 

 partment of Interior, Ottawa; Directors, 

 William Saunders, Director of Experi- 

 mental Farms, Ottawa ; J. R. Booth, 

 Ottawa ; Prof. John Macoun, Ottawa ; 



