406 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



September 



Second. Except in the yellow pine hibit, and that is so trifling, a map and 



exhibit, there is nowhere to be found 

 a set of specimens illustrating lumber 

 grades. Each exhibitor shows the best, 

 or better than the best in a commercial 



a few pictures, that nothing were better. 



But if the growth of forestry seems 

 limited by certain defects or shortcom- 

 scale, and the great opportunity to com- ings in the exhibits made, the Fair itself 

 pare gradings in different woods and in proves the contrary. People from all 

 different parts of the country is lost. parts of the country seek the Forestry 



Third. An excellent opportunity to building, ask for information, are dis- 



make a comparative study of woods is 

 almost lost through the failure of exhib- 

 itors to properly label their specimens. 



The confusion in common names is 

 hopeless, and something might have 

 been gained through an effort on the 

 part of the management to have each 

 specimen properly identified and marked. 



Fourth. Forestry as a science or art 

 the means by which timber lands are 

 maintained and improved or forests 

 created is a name only outside the 

 spaces allotted to Germany, Japan, the 

 United States Bureau of Forestry, and 

 the State of New York. Yale is the 

 only forest school that attempts an ex- 



appointed that certain things are not 

 done, and in many ways evince the 

 liveliest interest in the new movement. 

 There are plenty of dim ideas about 

 what is to be done, there is still more 

 than enough of sentimental enthusiasm; 

 but indifference has ceased and the ac- 

 tive opposition maintained by a few 

 interests is giving way as the aims of 

 forestry become understood. It is the 

 deliberate judgment of one who has had 

 an exceptional opportunity to learn the 

 minds of many people that the progress 

 made in forestry within the past 10 

 years is real, that it is immense, and 

 that it will continue. 



SOUTHERN FLORIDA. 



NOTES ON THE FOREST CONDITIONS OF THE SOUTH- 

 ERNMOST PART OF THIS REMARKABLE PENINSULA. 



BY 



DR. JOHN GIFFORD. 



ACCORDING to the report of the 

 Biological Survey of the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, there are 

 three regions in the United States which 

 belong to the Tropical Zone. 



One is in southern Texas close to the 

 mouth of the Rio Grande, another is 

 along the Colorado River in Arizona and 

 California, and the other is southern 

 Florida. 



The first two are hot and arid, the 

 other is humid and pleasant throughout 

 the major portion of the year. The 

 southernmost part of Florida can right- 

 fully claim, therefore, the distinction of 

 being the only humid or truly tropical 



part of the mainland of the United 

 States the only tropical part of this 

 country which can be reached by rail. 

 The lines called the tropics of Capricorn 

 and Cancer, although of course perfectly 

 straight on the map, are really very 

 crooked and very dificult to definitely 

 locate. Some claim that the frost line is 

 the limit; if this is so no part of Florida 

 is in the tropics, since frost has occurred, 

 in spots at least, throughout the whole 

 peninsula. The best guide is the char- 

 acter of the vegetation, and wherever 

 the cocoanut, avocado, mango, pineap- 

 ple, and hundreds of other strictly or 

 characteristically tropical plants flour- 



* The illustrations accompanying this article are reproduced here from an article by Dr. 

 N. L. Britton on "Explorations in Florida and the Bahamas" in the July number of the 

 Journal of the Neiv York Botanical Garden, through the courtesy of its editor, Dr. MacDougal. 



