NEWS AND NOTES 



Wisconsin Gets Forest Laboratory 



The Government's new forest products' 

 laboratory will be located at the University 

 of Wisconsin, at Madison. In naming Wis- 

 consin, Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the United 

 States Forest Service, said: "I have had 

 few decisions to make which were so diffi- 

 cult or which have had such prolonged and 

 careful consideration as the decision as to 

 which of the offers for cooperation in estab- 

 lishing and maintaining a forest products 

 laboratory I should recommend for accept- 

 ance by the Secretary of Agriculture." 



The establishment of the laboratory means 

 the concentration of all lines of the experi- 

 mental investigations of the Government 

 looking to closer and better utilization of 

 timber and the checking of wood-waste. 

 Forest Service laboratories for timber-test 

 work at Yale and Purdue universities and 

 the Government's wood-pulp and wood- 

 chemistry laboratory in Washington will be 

 consolidated and transferred to Madison as 

 soon as practicable. A force of fifteen to 

 twenty timber-test engineers, experts in wood 

 preservation, wood-pulp manufacture, and 

 wood distillation, will have charge of the 

 work carried on. The laboratory will have 

 an equipment valued at not less than $15,000. 

 The university will furnish the building, 

 light, heat and power, and in return advanced 

 students will have the use of the laboratory 

 for special work in related lines. 



Roads for National Forests 



The Office of Public Roads of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture is to cooperate with the 

 Forest Service in drawing up plans for com- 

 prehensive systems of roads and trails on 

 National Forests. 



For the last two years Congress has pro- 

 vided funds for permanent improvements on 

 National Forests, and a large part of the 

 money thus made available has been and 

 is being used for road and trail building. 

 The amount is too small, however, in com- 

 parison with the total area of the forests, 

 to make possible more than a very small 

 beginning. 



During the present summer an engineer of 

 the Office of Roads will go over the ground 

 on several of the Forests, and draw up plans 

 which will be submitted to the Forester, and 

 will serve to guide subsequent work. Where 

 the roads planned for cannot be built, trails 

 will, so far as possible, be made to follow 

 the courses laid out, with the expectation 

 that later they will be converted into roads. 



The roads, trails, telephone lines, and fire 

 lines already constructed on National Forests 

 are proving of great value both in the work 

 of fire protection and in serving the con- 

 venience of the public. 



English Forest and Land Policy 



After neglecting her forests for hundreds 

 of years, Great Britain, as indicated in 

 CONSERVATION for March, has come to the 

 front with the most farsighted proposal for 

 forest-work and land-improvement ever ad- 

 vanced by any nation in a single plan. 



The recommendations just made to the 

 British government by the Royal Commission 

 on Afforestation and Coast Erosion will make 

 England self-supporting in the production of 

 timber if successfully carried out. 



Great Britain has long been dependent 

 upon outside sources for her wood supplies. 

 But the constantly-increasing demand for 

 wood, together with the overdrain already 

 made upon these sources, indicates a world- 

 shortage of wood unless those countries 

 which now have to import are able to estab- 

 lish and maintain their forest independence 

 and grow the needed wood at home. Most 

 of the countries of Europe have taken care 

 to keep up the home-wood output by look- 

 ing after their forests before they were de- 

 stroyed or hopelessly depleted, and managing 

 them for a sustained annual yield about equal 

 to the demand. The British Isles, however, 

 are practically stripped of productive forests. 

 If Great Britain is to grow her own wood, 

 she will have to begin at the beginning, set 

 out the seedlings on treeless ground, and wait 

 for them to reach marketable size. The 

 commission recommends that this work of 

 starting future national forests frora the seed 

 be undertaken "as a sound and remunera- 

 tive investment. ' ' 



There is no question, the report says, that 

 substantially the anticipated results can be 

 obtained. Experts testified before the com- 

 mission that "the production of timber in 

 Great Britain will be more rapid than in 

 Saxony," which was selected for compari- 

 son on account of the close resemblance be- 

 tween the economic and physical conditions 

 in the two countries. Yet, in Saxony, the 

 net annual profits per acre from the national 

 forests has increased 412 per cent, in ninety 

 years, mainly, it was testified, because of 

 "the more systematic and careful manage- 

 ment." The lack of forests in Great Britain 

 is the result, not of natural conditions, but 

 of bad national economy. This is further 

 proved by the fact that there are a number 



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