1903 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



217 



leave of absence in order to act as State 

 Engineer of Colorado, a position which 

 includes lines of work much the same 

 as have been carried on in connection 

 with the work of the experiment sta- 

 tion. In the meantime Professor Car- 

 penter will retain his connection with 

 the experiment station and have super- 

 visory control of the Department of 

 Civil and Irrigation Engineering at the 

 college. 



The Colorado Agricultural College 

 will soon erect a building for the De- 

 partment of Civil and Irrigation Engi- 

 neering. This building will include 

 also the offices of the experiment sta- 

 tion during I9O3-'O4. An appropriation 

 for this purpose of $40,000 has been 

 made by the Colorado State Legislature. 



Forest Work 

 in Kansas. 



Western Kansas north 

 of the Arkansas River 

 and west of a line drawn 

 fromOsbofne through Russell toLarned, 

 will receive the attention of the Bureau 

 of Forestry this summer. A study of 

 the tree growth of that region will begin 

 this month under the direction of R. S. 

 Kellogg, of Russell, Kans., an agent for 

 the Bureau, and will be continued until 

 fall. In this part of the state the timber 

 penetrates the prairies by way of the 

 river bottoms, clinging closely to these 

 moist lands and advancing only occasion- 

 ally to the uplands. 



The Bureau will study the tendency 

 of the trees and shrubs along the water- 

 courses to increase and spread, especially 

 when protected from fire and stock, and 

 will determine what species are best 

 adapted to planting on those uplands 

 that contain no natural growth. 



In many places along the streams 

 where fire and stock have been excluded 

 for ten or fifteen years are found thrifty 

 young Cottonwoods, White Elms, Box- 

 elders, and other species which are 

 slowly invading the great plains. 



The low rainfall of western Kansas 

 is not alone responsible for the scarcity 

 of timber. The Pine Ridge country 

 of Nebraska grows forests with only 

 1 6 inches of rain a year, while the 

 treeless regions of western Kansas 



have a precipitation of 16 to 20 inches. 

 Failures in tree planting, aside from 

 natural causes, such as high winds and 

 intense sunlight, are due chiefly to a lack 

 of care in planting and cultivating and 

 a lack of knowledge of what kinds of 

 trees to plant. 



Such failures have not been without 

 some value they have given a fairly 

 good knowledge of what to and what not 

 to plant, and of the methods that are 

 successful and those that are not. It is 

 partly to increase this knowledge that 

 the Bureau has undertaken its study of 

 the tree growth of the state. Timber, 

 fuel, posts, and firewood may be grown 

 in the prairie regions; that fact is estab- 

 lished. But the plantations, to be suc- 

 cessful, must be composed of the right 

 species, planted in the right way on the 

 right kind of land, and cared for in the 

 right manner. 



Death of an With the recent prema- 

 Oregon ture death of Mr. A. J. 



Forester. Johnson, Oregon loses 



a man who had done 

 much to increase interest in and to pro- 

 mote the cause of forestry in the state. 

 He died at the city of Portland, Oregon, 

 April 10, of pneumonia, at the age of 

 forty-nine. 



Mr. Johnson was a native of Sweden, 

 and came to the United States in 1872, 

 settling first in California and later at 

 Astoria, Oregon, where for the last 

 twenty years he has conducted a pros- 

 perous forest nursery business, dealing 

 particularly with the Pacific Slope for- 

 est trees, shrubs, and other plants. 



His wide and practical knowledge of 

 the forest trees of Oregon and of adja- 

 cent states early brought him into prom- 

 inence in state forest exhibition work. 

 His most important work of this kind 

 was the collection and installation of 

 Oregon's forest exhibit at the World's 

 Columbian Exposition, Chicago ; Pan- 

 American Exposition, Buffalo, and at 

 the South Carolina Interstate and West 

 Indian Exposition, held at Charleston. 

 The excellence of these displays of Ore- 

 gon's immense timber resources was due 

 to Mr. Johnson's thorough knowledge 



