1904 



FOREvSTRY AND IRRIGATION 



use for a single season on the tract of 

 one operator in Georgia. Today the 

 men who conduct three- fourths of the 

 operations in the whole Southern Pine 

 belt have adopted it, or are waiting to 

 adopt it, as soon as their orders for the 

 necessary apparatus can be filled. 



FOREST MANAGEMENT. 



While the growing willingness of the 

 private owners, in whose hands are the 

 great bulk of the forests of the country, 

 to inquire into the possibilities of forestry 

 in connection with their holdings has 

 opened an opportunity for educational 

 work, the value of which it is hardly 

 possible to overstate, a larger proportion 

 of the energies of the Bureau has been 

 given during the past year to introduc- 

 ing forestry on public lands than ever 

 before. 



In accordance with the provisions of 

 the so-called Morris Bill, selection has 

 been made and approved of 104,159 

 acres out of a total of 225,000 acres of 

 land in the Chippewa Indian reserva- 

 tions in northern Minnesota, which will 

 constitute the Minnesota National Forest 

 Reserve. Official announcement of the 

 second selection will soon be made. 

 Selection of ten sections to be reserved 

 from sale and settlement has also been 

 made and approved . Volume tables and 

 estimates of the total stand of the forest 

 have been prepared, upon which will be 

 based recommendations for the reserva- 

 tion from lumbering of 5 per cent of 

 the timber for seed trees, as the act pro- 

 vides. Trees which will not be cut 

 when the forest is lumbered have been 

 marked on more than 6,000 acres, and 

 rules which will control the lumbering 

 have been prepared and have been ap- 

 proved by the Secretary of the Interior. 



A working plan for the tract of the 

 United States Military Academy at West 

 Point was prepared at the request of the 

 Secretary of War. The forest, which 

 consists of hardwood sprouts, is in poor 

 condition, the result of numerous fires 

 and injudicious cutting. The plan is 

 accompanied by forest maps, which show 

 the location and area of the various 

 types of forest, and provides for fire 

 protection and for such improvement 

 cuttings as will again put the forest in 



a sound and healthy condition. This 

 plan is now being put into effect under 

 the supervision of the Bureau of For- 

 est r y. 



At the request of the Secretary of the 

 Interior working plans were prepared 

 for three Indian reservations in Wiscon- 

 sin, which include recommendations for 

 their protection from fire and rules under 

 which they shall be lumbered without 

 unnecessary damage to the forest. 



Ninety-four applications for assist- 

 ance in managing forest lands were 

 made by private owners. Of these ap- 

 plications 37 were for timber tracts and 

 57 for woodlots. Since the Bureau put 

 into effect its cooperative scheme of as- 

 sisting private owners, applications have 

 been received for advice in the manage- 

 ment of 5,656,171 acres. Farmers and 

 other private owners of small tracts of 

 woodland throughout the Northeast, the 

 Middle West, and the South Atlantic 

 States have applied in increasing num- 

 bers for the assistance of the Bureau in 

 the management of their tracts. Fifty- 

 eight working plans for woodlots were 

 prepared last year. 



Field studies of five large timber 

 tracts were made as folluws : On 39,000 

 acres in Berkeley county, S. C. ; on 

 2,321 acres on the Susquehanna River 

 above Harrisburg, Pa. ; on 16,000 acres 

 in Mitchell, Caldwell, and Watauga 

 counties, N. C. ; on a Longleaf Pine 

 forest in southeastern Texas, involving 

 fieldwork on 300,000 acres, which occu- 

 pied 35 men for four months, and on 

 125,000 acres in northwestern Maine, 

 which occupied 32 men for three and a 

 half months. 



W r orking plans are in preparation for 

 the following tracts : A forest of 25,000 

 acres in Sullivan county, N. H. ; a for- 

 est of 50,000 acres in West Virginia, 

 and a forest of 3,000 acres in Grafton 

 county, N. H. 



The forest of R. C. Neal, near Harris- 

 burg, Pa. , for which a working plan was 

 prepared last year, is now under conserv- 

 ative forest management. Two field 

 assistants of the Bureau are supervising 

 the lumbering operations of a large com- 

 pany in Newton and Jasper counties, 

 Texas. The working plan for the United 

 States Militarv Academvat West Point is 



