3 I2 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



were destroyed, and that the fires were 

 general through a wider region than at 

 first supposed, as there is hardly a town 

 of that part of the state which did not 

 report serious destruction in its imme- 

 diate vicinity. 



"Wisconsin. The fires in the neigh- 

 borhood of Ashland, which started 

 April 27, were reported in our last issue. 

 The little town of Kimball was de- 

 stroyed, with considerable lumber, some 

 of it on cars. Fires of some magnitude 

 spread through the woods along Lake 

 Superior between the Michigan and 

 Minnesota boundaries, but were fortu- 

 nately arrested by a heavy downpour of 

 rain. From Appleton, under date of 

 May 6, there have been reports of 

 earlier and more serious spring fires 

 than usual, most of them being con- 

 fined to hardwoods ; pulp and pine wood 

 suffered but little. In a large part of 

 the territory where the fires burned, the 

 snow was still on the ground, and this 

 fact aided in quelling the flames more 

 rapidly than is generally the case. 



Minnesota. Fire ran through about 

 9,000,000 feet of down timber on the 



Cass Lake Indian Reservation on May i . 

 This timber was blown down last fall, 

 and it was recommended at that time 

 that the pine be cut and the money go 

 into the Chippewa Indian fund ; but 

 the work was not done last fall, though 

 it was stated that it was to have been 

 started within a week of the date when 

 the fire started. Besides lying in the 

 snow, the lumber suffered greatly from 

 this fire, and thousands of dollars have 

 been lost to the Indians, 



Canada. Fires on both sides of the 

 St. Lawrence River, in Quebec and 

 Ontario provinces, were reported as 

 burning from April 30 to May 7, de- 

 stroying many thousands of cords of 

 pulp wood, much standing timber, and 

 a few small settlements. The Lauren- 

 tian region, north of Montreal, suffered 

 severely, people abandoning farms and 

 animals in their efforts to escape. The 

 little village of Morrison was wiped out 

 and a Canadian Pacific train only got 

 through by going at full speed, and 

 even then the cars were scorched. Part 

 of the country north of Lake Superior 

 was also in flames at that time. 



RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 



Any of these books will be sent by the publishers of "Forestry and Irrigation,'" postpaid, to any 

 address on receipt of the published price, with postage added when the price is marked "net." 



Grundriss der Wildbachverbauung. Volume II. 

 By FEBDINAND WANG. Published by 

 S. Hirzel, Leipzig. Price, 16 marks. 



The wars and other political disturbances of 

 the iyth and iSth centuries wrought great 

 havoc in the forests in the mountains of south- 

 ern Europe. The population became very im- 

 poverished and a wholesale destruction of the 

 forests went on from year to year until great 

 regions in the Pyrenees, the French, Austrian, 

 and German Alps, and the mountains of Italy 

 and of Bohemia became the scenes of annual 

 floods and terrible erosions, landslides, and 

 avalanches. Early in the igth century the 

 situation became so serious that the preven- 

 tion of such disasters became a national policy. 

 Millions were spent in the correction of streams 

 and reforestation. In many places the work 

 was almost in vain, but on the whole patient 

 steady labor was, at a great price, rewarded 

 with success. At present the systems applied 

 have become scientific enough to allow of in- 

 corporation into a general text-book. 



The work of Ferdinand Wang in two 

 volumes is such a hand-book, and is a com- 



pilation of all the experience gained by en- 

 gineers and foresters in Europe during the 

 last century. The first volume deals with the 

 theoretical part of the discussion, the effect of 

 forests in the regulation of drainage and the 

 consequent results of deforestation in moun- 

 tainous districts. Unfortunately this volume 

 is not available at present. The second volume 

 is entirely technical and deals with the methods 

 of correcting wild torrents in the mountains, 

 of preventing avalanches and rolling stones by 

 protection forests, and of erosions by correct- 

 ing the water flow and reforestation. These 

 subjects are treated in detail, and the text is- 

 elucidated by a great number of plates and 

 figures. The section on protection forests and 

 on erosions is particularly interesting. Many 

 instructive pictures show the various stages of 

 the process of founding protection forests and 

 preventing serious erosions. The work seems 

 to have been done with great speed, and, as 

 the pictures show, with complete success. 



A very large section of the book is given up 

 to a detailed description of tree planting on 

 high mountains and eroded areas. A great 



