244 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



gave an idea of the working methods of 

 the department. Trees and cuttings 

 have been planted ; insects injurious to 

 trees have been exterminated ; new 

 species of trees introduced ; forest re- 

 serves advocated, and general measures 

 looking to the preservation of the forests 

 suggested. The women's clubs are 

 doing a great work in the spreading of 

 information relating to the tenets of 

 forestry and its teachings. 



Forest Fire Following the meager re- 

 Record. ports of more or less in- 



cipient forest fires, as men- 

 tioned in the May number of FORESTRY 

 AND IRRIGATION, come advices of fires 

 of increasing gravity, principally from 

 sections in which a dr)^ spring has fa- 

 vored their spread. Locomotive sparks 

 have been an additional accessory and 

 in many cases added to their impetus. 

 The states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, 

 and Michigan have experienced such a 

 spring, and, judging from newspaper 

 reports, the first named has suffered 

 severely. Several houses were lost in 

 the vicinity of Rhinelander and Witten- 

 berg, a number of barns have been 

 burned, and several hundred cords of 

 wood and much live stock were de- 

 stroyed. In Bayfield county, as late as 

 May 30, damage was reported from 

 fires which in one instance threatened 

 the destruction of a small town, Cornu- 

 copia. Along the line of the Michigan 

 and Wisconsin railroad and the Soo 

 line much apprehension was felt, owing 

 to the threatened destruction of large 

 quantities of cedar timber and ties piled 

 along the roads in the fire zone. More 

 loss has been occasioned through de- 

 struction of buildings, crops, cut tim- 

 ber, and live stock, however, than to 

 standing timber, as the lands burned 

 over were .of little worth. In Minne- 

 sota several small fires were reported in 

 the vicinity of Eveleth, but no great 

 amount of damage was inflicted. Near 

 Menominee, Michigan, forest fires de- 

 stroyed considerable cut timber. In 

 Arizona the rangers of the Black Mesa 

 Forest Reserve had to fight an incipient 

 blaze which traveled several miles. 

 Forest fires in the Mogollon Moun- 



tains, in the Gila River Forest Reserve 

 in New Mexico, demanded some atten- 

 tion from rangers on May 18, but, ow- 

 ing to immediate fire-fighting, no seri- 

 ous damage was done to the fine timber 

 in the heart of the Mogollons, as was 

 at first anticipated. High winds favored 

 the progress of a number of small but 

 destructive fires in the Blue Ridge 

 Mountains of Virginia, in Rappahan- 

 nock county, and North Carolina also 

 experienced forest fires of a minor 

 character near Castle Haynes. In New 

 Jersey press reports indicate the de- 

 struction of a number of houses and 

 several cranberry bogs in the vicinity 

 of Doughty's Tavern, and several scat- 

 tered fires have burned over valua- 

 ble woodland. In Pennsylvania, near 

 Bloomsburg, a large amount of stand- 

 ing timber was burned in a fire started 

 presumably from locomotive sparks. 



Connecticut 

 Forests. 



The work which the 

 Connecticut Forestry 

 Association is doing in 

 protecting the forests of the state and in 

 having the waste lands of Connecticut 

 utilized by forest growth was explained 

 by Walter Mulford, the state forester, 

 at the annual meeting of the association, 

 held at Hartford recently. 



The state forest in the town of Port- 

 land contains 900 acres, which was 

 bought at an average price of $1.65 an 

 acre. The first appropriation by the 

 state was $2,000 in 1901. All but 6 

 cents of this appropriation has been 

 spent, and the appropriation of $2,000 

 made in 1903 is being utilized. The 

 state forest in Portland is being used to 

 show people the method of treating 

 woodland in raising a crop of timber and 

 to induce private owners of woodlands 

 to give them better care by showing 

 them that it is profitable to do so. The 

 future work on the state forest will be 

 in the nature of thinning out the trees 

 to obtain a better growth and the sowing 

 of chestnut, oak, and pine 



The state forestry association has re- 

 cently notified the granges of the state 

 that lectures on the subject of forestry 

 will be furnished without expense, and 

 the association proposes to secure some 



