NEWS AND NOTES 



Floods on the Congo 



A dispatch from Brussels, Belgium, 

 under date of February 18, says: 



Floods in the Lower Congo country have 

 devastated posts, factories and villages. The 

 inhabitants have been ruined and are dying 

 in great numbers. 



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 The Railroad Must Pay Fire Damages 



The Brooklyn Standard-Union for 

 January 13 said : 



The Long Island Railroad Company heard 

 to-day that it will have to pay $119,300 for 

 t'amage caused by fires to property abutting 

 the lines of the company. The suit against 

 the railroad was won by Charles M. Stafford, 

 who acted with the consent of the Forestry 

 Commission, after a hard fight to convince 

 the members that the company was violating 

 the forest, fish and game laws of the State 

 of New York. 



The railroad officials contended that the 

 law did not apply to Long Island, that it was 

 only made for the forests in the Adirondacks 

 and" Catskills. The decision of the Court of 

 Appeals says the law applies to every place 

 and every railroad in the State. 



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The Joint Committee on Cooperation 



The Joint Committee on Cooperation, au- 

 thorized by the Joint Conservation Confer- 

 ence which met in Washington, D. C., on 

 December 8, 9 and 10 last, will meet on 

 March sth. 



This committee consists of eleven men, 

 three members of the National Conservation 

 Commission and six members of the State 

 Conservation Commissions, with the addition 

 of the chairman of the conference, Mr. Gif- 

 ford Pinchot, and Mr. T. R. Shipp, Secretary. 

 The six members are chairmen of the State 

 Conservation Commissions. 



This committee will consider suggestions 

 forwarded to it from the various conserva- 

 tion organizations, National, state and pri- 

 vate, and, from these, will formulate a plan 

 of cooperation by which all the organizations 

 named can cooperate harmoniously on specific, 

 coordinated lines of effort. In this way it is 

 hoped that a large and effective work may be 

 organized. , 



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State Control of Forest Fires 



In the February issue of CONSERVATION, 

 in connection with the remarks of Prof H. 

 II. Chapman, appears the report on State 

 178 



Control of Forest Fires, submitted to the 

 Annual Meeting of The American Forestry 

 Association on January i3th last. This re- 

 port was prepared by a commission ap- 

 pointed several months before by the Asso- 

 ciation and composed of men of wide expe- 

 rience who devoted a considerable amount of 

 time and thought to the study of the ques- 

 tion before them. Their report was adopted 

 by the Association as its program. The As- 

 sociation further decided to publish a suf- 

 ficient number of copies for distribution 

 among all the state legislatures in the Union. 

 In accordance therewith, twelve copies were 

 sent to the President of the Senate, and to 

 the Speaker of the House of Representatives 

 of every state and territory, these copies 

 being accompanied by a letter stating the 

 purpose of the program. From about twenty 

 states there have come to the office of the 

 Association not only acknowledgment of the 

 pamphlet, but a number of letters containing 

 expressions of interest and approval. In 

 one instance request was made for additional 

 copies with which to supply every member 

 of the assembly. 



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Secretary Wilson to Continue in Cabinet 



The Washington Times of January 

 29 said : 



The decision of Mr. Taft to retain Secre- 

 tary James Wilson, of Iowa, as head of the 

 Department of Agriculture, gives much sat- 

 isfaction in Washington. 



Much satisfaction also is expressed in Con- 

 gressional circles. Not only had the mem- 

 bers of the Iowa delegation written a strong 

 letter to Mr. Taft, but a large number of 

 members of the House and Senate, without 

 being asked to do so, had written urging 

 that Mr. Wilson be reappointed. 



Secretary Wilson has seen the Department 

 of Agriculture make great strides since he 

 became the head of it. But he has been 

 working in the cause of the advancement of 

 Governmental efforts in behalf of agriculture 

 much longer than he has been head of the 

 department. 



Back in the days when he was in Congress 

 he urged the establishment of a Department 

 of Agriculture. He was one of the first to 

 insist that the Bureau of Agriculture ought 

 to be converted into a department. 



To Prevent Fraud on the Public Domain 



The Sundry Civil Appropriation Bill, as 

 reported from Committee to the House on 

 February 19, contained a clause granting to 

 the Secretary of the Interior, $1,000,000 for 



