248 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



ious to know whether it will be cheap- 

 er to haul from its holdings in the 

 Rocky Mountains the million ties 

 needed annually for the eastern line, 

 or to grow them somewhere in Min- 

 nesota or Wisconsin. These states 

 are preferred as they are near the 

 railroad and cheap land can be se- 

 cured there. The investigation by 

 the Bureau will establish the possibil- 

 ity and the cost of producing ties in 

 these states. If ties are brought 

 from the Rockies they would prob- 

 ably be of lodgepole pine ; if grown 

 in Minnesota or Wisconsin some of 

 the inferior hardwoods or possibly 

 pine would be preferred. The result 

 of this study will be of interest to all 

 railroads, since the tie supply ques- 

 tion is one of increasingly great im- 

 portance. Mr. H. H. Chapman, the 

 bureau agent, who will be in charge of 

 the work, has started his investiga- 

 tions, which will cover several months. 

 Another application has been re- 

 ceived by the Bureau of Forestry for 

 a preliminary examination of a water- 

 shed on the chaparral-covered slopes 

 of the mountains of Southern Califor- 

 nia, this being the third of the kind 

 received within the last few weeks. 

 These requests are largely the result 

 of the experimental work in refores- 

 tation which has been carried on by 

 the Bureau of Forestry in the San 

 Gabriel Mountains back of Pasadena. 

 The growing value of water and the 

 realization that the chaparral cover 

 does not satisfactorily retain the pre- 

 cipitation, has led many irrigation 

 companies to seriously consider the 

 subject. This last application was 

 from an irrigation company in Santa 

 Ana, Orange County, and their de- 

 sire is to reforest, if possible, the 

 drainage basin of Santiago Creek in 

 the Santa Ana Mountains. At pres- 

 ent the run-off is very rapid during 

 the heavy rains, and the flow of the 

 stream deficient in summer. This 

 follows as the result of repeated fires 

 in chaparral and the denuded condi- 

 tion of many slopes. 



Agents of the Bureau of Forestry 



have commenced to make maps of 

 the southern part of Xew Hampshire 

 which will show the timber land, the 

 agricultural land, and the barren areas 

 suitable for tree planting. This work 

 is done in cooperation with New 

 Hampshire, and some 4,000,000 acres 

 will be mapped this summer. Forest 

 work in the state will be done chiefly 

 w r ith the view of advising farmers and 

 owners of second-growth forest as to 

 the best management for the produc- 

 tion of pulp wood, box boards, fire 

 wood, etc. Another object is to com- 

 plete a forest policy for the state, 

 covering legislation upon fire and for- 

 est taxation, also a system to protect 

 timberland and to encourage conser- 

 vative forest management. Mr. C. 

 A. Lyford, agent of the Bureau of 

 Forestry, detailed in charge of this 

 work, is now 7 in New Hampshire in 

 consultation with its State Forest 

 Commission. He will be assisted in 

 his work by some ten or more bureau 

 field men. 



Mr. A. F. Potter, for- 

 est inspector, left yester- 

 day for the west to make 

 special investigations relating to graz- 

 ing in the forest reserves. He will 

 cover Utah, Wyoming and Montana 

 in the early part of the season, and 

 California in the fall. 



Reclamation Among the recent ap- 

 Appointments pointments, assignments 

 and Transfers and trans f ers in t h e ]J. 



S. Reclamation Service the following 

 are noted : 



Clayton W. Bowles, of Orono, 

 Maine, has received an appointment 

 as engineering aid and directed to re- 

 port to F. E. Weymouth, Glendive, 

 Montana. Mr. Bowles took a course 

 in civil engineering in the 1905 class, 

 University of Maine, and has had ex- 

 perience in connection with the Fort 

 Buford project, North Dakota, dur- 

 ing 1904. 



Harold N. Cross, of Exeter. N. H., 

 has been appointed assistant engineer, 

 and will report for duty to F. E. Wey- 

 mouth,, Glendive, Mont. He graduat- 

 ed from the Thaver School of Civil 



Grazing 

 Inspection 



